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I 



HIS CELESTIAL MARRIAGE 


OR 

THE BAR-SINISTER 


A SOCIAL STUDY 


BY 


/ 


MRS. JEANNETTE H. WALWORTH 



If that the heavens do not their visible spirits 
Send quickly down to tame these vile offenses, 
'T will come, 

Humanity must perforce prey on itself 
Like monsters of the deep.” 

—King Lear. 


NEW YORK 

THE MERSHON COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


31801 


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COPYRIGHT, 1885, BY 
O. M. DUNHAM. 


B" 

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Copyright, 1899, 

fc- 


BY 



THE MERSHON COMPANY. 

P"' 



III 

V 

A// rights reserved. 


T\NO OOP\v,b RECEIVED. 





Dedication 


TO THE 

NATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN OF THE U. S. 

And to all the club women of America, who are 
banded together for the preservation of a high 
ideal of womanhood and for the best interests of 
American homes, this book, which aims to strike 
a blow at one of the evils of the age, is most 
affectionately dedicated by 

THE AUTHOR. 


New York City, April, 1899. 



> 


PREFACE. 


If there be those who complain that the draught 
herein offered is brackish to the taste, let them bear in 
mind that men do not draw sweet waters from an 
impure source. The fountain is brackish and the 
bitterness of Marah is in its waters ! 

If there be those who object that the shadows are 
black and thick, while the lights are pale and shifting, 
let them bear in mind that men do not look for sun- 
shine under the brooding wing of the storm-cloud ! 

If there be those who repine at the failure of time to 
smooth away all furrows and ease every heart-ache 
herein chronicled, let them bear in mind that men do 
not gather figs of thistles, or grapes of thorns ! 

It is but a sheaf of thorns and thistles bound about 
by a withe of truth that is offered. 


The Author. 





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CONTENTS; 


Chapter i. a tenacious man. . . . . i 

Chapter ii. motes and beams. . . . .10 

Chapter hi. two letters of one date. . . 24 

Chapter iv. the doctor’s perplexities. . . 32 

Chapter v. the day of departure. . . .46 

Chapter vi. mr. quinby receives visitors and 

advice. . . . . .57 

Chapter vii. discipline and defeat. . . 71 

Chapter viii. an importation from the south. . 86 

Chapter ix. snap judgment. . . . .100 

Chapter x. shall auld acquaintance be forgot.? in 

Chapter xi. a saintly sinner. . . 129 

Chapter xii. stricken hearts. . . .140 

Chapter xiii. mr. quinby’s attitude. . .153 

Chapter xiv. class no. i. . . . .165 

Chapter xv. the blow descends. . . .173 

Chapter xvi. comfort and mercy. . . .184 

Chapter xvii. the dedication of a life. . . 196 

Chapter xviii. two clouds. .... 208 

Chapter xix. in durance vile. . . .215 

Chapter xx. face to face. . . . .225 


vi 


CON TENTS. 


Chapter xxi. tottering idols. . ^ . .241 

Chapter xxii. class no. 3. . . . .’253 

Chapter xxiii. the problem solved. . . . 263 

Chapter xxiv. after many days. . . .275 

Chapter xxv. storm tossed. .... 289 
Chapter xxvi. in the toils. . ' . . . 303 

Chapter xxvii. the end of the struggle. . . 323 

Chapter xxviii. a parthian dart. . . . 328 

Chapter xxix. a partial atonement. . . 345 


THE BAR-SINISTER 


CHAPTER I. 

A TENACIOUS MAN. 

O N a certain afternoon of a certain day in a certain 
month of a year somewhere between 1870 and 
1885 Mr. John Quinby, the virtual head of the office in a 
certain building in New York City, somewhere between 
Central Park and the Battery, turned the handle of the 
big office safe to throw the lock off the combination 
with an air of hurried briskness not often observable 
in his movements, for Mr. Quinby had reached that 
altitude of worldly success which entitles a man to a 
certain amount of latitude in the way of leisurely de- 
liberation. As a rule, Mr. Quinby generally loitered 
about his snug office after business hours with the air 
of one whose heart was where his treasure was, and 
whose body was quite content to linger there also. But 
on the afternoon in question he got into his light fall 
topcoat with a decided jerk ; crowned his abundance 


2 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


of short-cropped hair with his tall silk hat with an un- 
usual disregard for its nice adjustment, and drew his 
gloves on as he walked toward the elevator, projecting 
an imperative “ down ! ” ahead of him to arrest the ma- 
chine that threatened to descend without him. All 
his actions on this exceptional afternoon indicated an 
undercurrent of impatience that yet seemed entirely 
devoid of any disagreeable element, unless, indeed, 
unrest is a disagreeable element, which perhaps it 
is, but is certainly not so recognized by men who have 
placed before them a standard of worldly success that 
they determine to live up to, or a goal they propose 
to reach, counting all effort, all sacrifice, all privation 
as nothing weighed in the balances against achieve- 
ment, or, at best, as so many necessary rounds on the 
ladder which must be toilsomely climbed to the end. 

Mr. Quinby had that day not exactly reached a goal, 
but he had gotten to a point in that long lane (whose 
possession of a “ turning ” he had often doubted) from 
which he had caught the first glimpse of the goal he 
had been laboring toward, and the dazzling sight 
loomed in the near perspective. 

No wonder then that Mr. Quinby’s usually well- 
regulated pulse was slightly a-flutter, and no wonder 
he was impatient to make Mrs. John Quinby a par- 
taker of his pleasurable excitement. 

There had been a Mrs. Quinby now for nearly two 
, years. A pretty, gentle-voiced, blue-eyed woman, 


A TENACIOUS MAN. 


3 


something of the Griselda type, but a veritable sharer 
of his sorrows and partaker of his joys. 

The external signs, however, of Mr. Quinby’s inward 
satisfaction were all expended on that brisk “ click” to 
his combination lock, that hurried investment of his 
topcoat and the putting on of his gloves as he walked. 
By the time he stepped out of the elevator on the 
ground floor of Ford, Farnham & Co.’s building he 
was to all outward seeming the same solidly composed, 
imperturbable business man, who was as familiar an ob- 
ject in Front street as the blue-coated policeman or the 
gray-coated letter-carrier of his beat. So assured, in- 
deed, was Mr. Quinby’s position as a successful man, 
that he was already, though still in his early thirties, 
often utilized to point a moral for the benefit of young 
men who were not doing as well as might be ex- 
pected. 

“ There’s Quinby now,” some veteran in the ranks 
of the bread-winners would say to some raw recruit 
with advisory emphasis, “ look at him ! Quinby began 
life as a messenger boy in the house of Ford, Farnham 
& Co. when he was ten years old at two dollars a week. 
Yes, sir, two dollars a week, and glad enough to get it 
too. Look at him now! Hale, handsome, happy! 
Pretty wife, snug home, fifteen thousand a year, not a 
care in the world ! What did he do ? He stuck, sir! 
that is all. Simply stuck ; and where is he now ? Step 
by step, round by round, he has climbed the ladder, 


4 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


the ladder he started on, bear in mind, sir, Ford, Farn- 
ham & Co.’s ladder, not skipping all around town to see 
if somebody wouldn’t help him to an easier ladder to 
climb, until he is just one round below the top. He is 
as high in the concern now as he can be without being 
full partner, and that will come before he is much 
older, for he has made himself essential to them ; yes, 
sir, absolutely essential. They couldn’t do without 
him. He knows it, and they know it, and they all 
know they know it. That is all you have to do, sir. 
Find your ladder, plant your feet fast on the first round, 
take a firm grip of your hand on the next and climb. 
Do your own climbing. Don’t be calling down for 
some other fellow to give you a boost every round. 
There’s nothing especially wonderful about John 
Quinby, except his tenacity. He never lets go an 
idea once he has given it a favorable hearing.” 

When, with a final “Yes, sir,” and a go-thou-and-do- 
likewise peroration, the veteran who, perhaps, by rea- 
son of his own failures in life, felt peculiarly fitted for 
the position of adviser, would dismiss the recruit with 
a comfortable sense of having done much toward 
starting him up the ladder of success. While the re- 
cruit would vaguely wish himself John Quinby, or on 
John Quinby’s ladder. 

Perhaps Mr. Quinby himself had not so far outlived 
the struggles of his harder years as to have forgotten 
the knocks and bruises he endured during the slow 


A TEN A CIO US M A N, 


5 


climb which made his later paths of pleasantness all 
the more agreeable. 

Perhaps he even posed for himself as a model worthy 
of all imitation, not offensively, you know, simply com- 
placently, with conscious unconsciousness ; for it 
stands to reason that each new elevation in the Hill 
Difficulty, must leave one slightly breathless, and calls 
a pause long enough for one to give a backward sweep 
of the eye over the plateau just left behind. Perhaps 
some such pleasant retrospection as this occupied Mr. 
Quinby’s mind and illumined his fine clear gray eyes 
as he stood upon the bow of the Jersey City ferry-boat 
awaiting the dropping of the guard that confined the 
herded passengers and prevented their impetuous de- 
parture from the boat before she was securely wind- 
lassed to the pier on the Jersey side of the river, for it 
was over in the dreamy, pretty, half-forsaken town of 
Elizabeth that Mrs. John Quinby was nested, and 
toward which Mr. Quinby was hastening with his 
burden of good news. 

The further behind him Mr. Quinby left the purely 
commercial atmosphere of his New York office, where 
every venture was put to the one single test “ will it 
pay ? ” and the nearer he approached the serene environ- 
ment of the pretty home in Broad street over which 
the spirit of love and peace had brooded undisturbed 
through all his married life, the more conscious he 
became that there was one mote in the broad ray of 


6 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


sunshine that had fallen so suddenly across his path- 
way that day. He wondered if Anna — that was Mrs. 
Quinby — would mistake this mote for a beam — women 
are given to exaggerations of that sort, and, as a rule, 
the better the woman the greater the exaggeration. He 
should be sorry to have his wife magnify things un- 
comfortably ; not that it would make any material dif- 
ference in the result, only, he should prefer that what 
he regarded as a mote, should be regarded as a mote, 
and nothing more than a mote, in Mrs. Quinby’s eyes 
too. But with all her gentleness and habitual submis- 
siveness Mrs. Quinby had great reserves of obstinacy 
and self-will that asserted themselves at the most unex- 
pected junctures. He smiled in perplexed amusement 
to think what a rich juncture he was about to offer for 
the exercise of both. To make no longer mystery of 
Mr. Quinby’s secret source of satisfaction and of appre- 
hension he had, that day, and without the harsh inter- 
vention of death, either, (he had long ago settled the 
date of his co-partnership as the date of death for one 
of the firm), been taken into full partnership with Ford, 
Farnham & Co., who, having resolved to extend their 
business by establishing a branch house in Salt Lake 
City, had decided that John Quinby was better qualified 
than the older heads of the house to take the helm in 
those untried waters. In all of which Mr. Quinby had 
fully agreed with them ; in fact, had experienced some 
difficulty in hiding from his heads the full measure of 


A TEN A CIO US M A N. 


1 


elation he experienced. But nature does not bestow 
the iron jaw and square-hewn chin which were among 
Mr. Quinby’s most marked physical points meaning- 
lessly. He had received the great proposition with a 
fine show of indifference and told Messrs. Ford, Farnham 
& Co., that he would let them know in ten days whether 
or not he would go. Go ! of course he would go. He 
repeated this decision so often and with such seeming 
disproportion of emphasis to himself, as he traveled 
towards his quiet home in quaint Elizabeth, that he 
finally turned upon the opposition and stood at bay. 
Mrs. Quinby unconsciously posed for the opposition. 
“ Anna was a sweet woman but a trifle narrow.” As Mr. 
Quinby thus mentally summed up the moral forces 
against which he was bracing his nerves to contend, he 
stroked the long mustache that drooped gracefully 
away from his upper lip until its foxy red ends rested 
on his strong, square chin, as who should say, however 
open Mrs. Quinby might be to the charge of narrow- 
ness, Mr. Quinby was singularly free from it. Yes, 
Anna was rather more than a trifle narrow. More the 
result of education, he supposed, than any constitutional 
deficiency, but the consequences were nevertheless un- 
pleasant. Now Mr. Quinby had not been the some- 
what masterful husband of his wife for nearly two years 
without having acquired an intimate knowledge of all 
the possibilities of every conceivable situation. 

The possibilities of the present situation were any 


8 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


thing but re-assuring. He smiled pityingly all to him- 
self, as he left the cars and struck off afoot up the 
quiet, shady street toward his home, as he pictured her 
look of horror and heard her plaintive “Oh! John, 
Utah!” Yes, he knew well enough beforehand, if a 
residence in Salt Lake City struck his un-Mormonized 
mind with just enough of repulsion to produce a mote 
in his sunlight, it would assume the magnitude of an 
enormous beam in his wife’s view. All women were 
incapable of taking large views on some subjects. This 
was one of them. He wished that the grand news of 
his advancement might have been without any draw- 
back at all. But although arrogantly aware that he was 
the architect of his own future, he had to build with 
such tools as he must, not as he would. No doubt Mrs. 
Quinby would even try to turn him from his resolve. 
He laughed dryly at the folly of such an attempt. He 
knew beforehand just what arguments she would use. 
Anna was not only a trifle narrow, she was entirely 
devoid of ambition. Perhaps that was very well in view 
of her sex. She would argue that the house they lived 
in had been her home ever since she was born and no 
other spot could ever seem like home to her. Quite, 
you know, as if a pile of crumbling bricks and mortar 
that had the one virtue of familiarity, should be allowed 
to compete with the colossal structure of Mr. Quinby’s 
success in life ! She would say she was as happy as she 
could be where she was, and more comfortable than she 


A TENACIOUS MAN. 


9 


could be any where else. Anna always took such a 
narrowly personal view of every suggestion! Yes, he 
flattered himself he had made her happy and comfort- 
able. All the more reason why now she should be 
willing to sacrifice something to his interests. She was 
sure to say, “ they were well enough as they were.” But 
a man is never well enough if a better state of affairs is 
possible. That better possibility had after all come to 
him rather unexpectedly after his long waiting for it, 
and it had not come in just the shape he had asked it 
of Fate. For the definite demand he had preferred at 
the courts of destiny some time ago, was for a full 
partnership in the firm of Ford, Farnham & Co., without 
the condition of exile annexed. As, however, with all 
his iron will, Mr. Quinby had never yet been able to 
bend destiny into subserviency, he was content to take 
the coveted partnership, annex and all, and pronounce it 
altogether good. 

That Anna would not, he was quite aware in advance. 
But then, Anna and destiny were in no one particular 
alike. He was as sure of his ability to manage the one 
as he was of his inability to cope with the other. 
“ She’s sure to kick at first,” said Mr. Quinby, settling 
his wife’s status, as he fitted the latch key into his 
front door, “ but she’ll soon give in.” 

Mr. Quinby was not unique in that he was always 
prepared to accept the sacrifice of his wife’s individuality 

in bland unconsciousness that any sacrifice was involved. 

2 


CHAPTER IL 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 

M r. QUINBY was too shrewd a humanist to under. 

value strategy in the domestic circle, and too 
much of an epicurean to mix emotion with his salad 
dressing. He preferred to bide his time for the telling 
of his important news, rather than risk cooling his soup 
with Mrs. Quinby’s tears, or taking the flavor out of 
his roast-beef by eating it opposite a frowning spouse. 
Arguments, he judged, were never more indigestible 
than when served up with cold potatoes. Moreover, 
the dinner-table is not a good strategic point. One 
always runs the risk of having a telling point drowned 
in the clatter of knives and forks, or the loss of dra- 
matic pause, by the exigent hunger of his auditors. 
So he sat at the head of his nicely appointed dinner- 
table in self-contained serenity, beaming impartially on 
Mrs. Quinby, who was looking prettily conscious of a 
new blue dress just home from the dress-maker, and 
the one other member of his small household, with 
very much the sensations of a man whose pockets are 
full of dynamite of which he intends presently to make 
active use. 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


1 1 

The “one other member” of Mr. Quinby’s house- 
hold was his brother Anthony, his senior by some six 
years, and his only living relative. Only a fragment of a 
relative after all, physically speaking, for Anthony 
Quinby had brought back from the battle of Gettys- 
burg scarcely more than enough of a once handsome 
person to contain his lofty soul and big heart, useless 
for all the practical purposes of life, unless it was to 
act as a sort of moral ballast to his younger and more 
worldly minded brother. 

People who dropped in of evenings on the Quinbys 
(and, notwithstanding its close proximity to New York 
City, the social art of dropping in, is still extant in 
Elizabeth) always went away freshly impressed with 
the placidity of the atmosphere in the Quinby house- 
hold. Anthony, who was saved from a galling sense of 
dependence on his brother by his ability to write ac- 
ceptable articles for the New York papers and maga- 
zines, contributed to the amusement of the family-circle 
by reading aloud of evenings. Mr. Quinby, slippered 
and cigared, divested of his Front street activities and 
Wall street anxieties for the time being, resolved him- 
self, usually, into an amiable absorbent of whatever 
his wife had to tell him verbally, or Anthony dispense 
oracularly from the printed page, and was conscious of 
his own extreme satisfaction with the general manage- 
ment of his affairs by his agent Fate ; while Mrs. 
Quinby accepted the goods the gods provided with un- 


12 


THE BAR-SJNJSTER, 


questioning belief that so long as she did nothing the 
decalogue distinctly forbade her doing, she would be 
left in undisturbed possession of her happiness, her 
home, and of — John ! That her undivided possession of 
this last element of happiness should ever be questioned 
never once entered her wildest imaginings. 

But on this especial evening Mr. Quinby did not feel 
equal to listening to Felix Holt for an hour or two 
without disburdening himself, as admirable as that 
work of fiction was, and as well as Anthony read it. 

“ Suppose we give Felix a rest to-night,” he sug- 
gested, inserting one plea for the radical and two for 
himself, as he lighted his own cigar and held the match 
to Anthony’s. “ I have something to talk to you and 
Anna about to-night, which I think will interest us all 
much more than finding out how Felix is going to get 
out of jail.” 

“ And it’s something very nice, Fm quite sure,” says 
Mrs. Quinby, looking at her husband with her pretty 
head very much on one side. But Mr. Quinby’s full 
gaze just then was fixed upon the gas-flames that 
danced over the asbestos logs in a pretty conspiracy 
with them to cheat the ignorant into a belief that they 
were enjoying a delightful old-fashioned wood fire. His 
profile was non-committal, so Mrs. Quinby unpinned the 
handkerchief she had brought from the much be-ribboned 
work-basket in the corner, and laying its folded corners 
back, took up a mysterious study in blue floss on white 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


13 


cashmere that had occupied her fingers for so many 
evenings now that the most unobservant of men 
must long since have discovered it to be a thing of 
parts, with backs and fronts and sleeves, all of the 
most miniature proportions and fairy-like delicacy. 

“Yes ; it is something good ; something very good I 
may say. I will give you two guesses apiece. You 
first, Mrs. Q.“ 

“West Shore bonds have gone way up ! “ says Mrs. 
Quinby in a voice of elated conviction that nothing 
better could possibly happen for them all, as even she 
and Anthony have dabbled timidly in that stock. 

“ No ; West Shore bonds are tumbling clean out of 
sight.” 

“ Why don’t you sell out then? ” Anthony interpo- 
lates practically. 

“ Haven’t been able yet to find any body anxious 
enough to sacrifice himself for my benefit. Guess 
again, Anna.” 

“ They are going to put another window in your 
office so that you shall not die of malaria in that dark 
hole.” 

Mrs. Quinby offers this second guess with moderate 
confidence only. She feels sure that, important as it 
has always seemed to her, and vigorously as she has in- 
sisted on it, after every visit to her husband’s rather 
poorly lighted office, John was not likely to think it 
worth a guess or a pleasant mystification. 


14 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Mr. Quinby’s contemptuous laugh told her she had 
far undershot the mark. 

“Well, Tony, it’s your turn ; Anna’s ideas of good 
news are rather meek and lowly.” 

“ You’ve got the partnership,” says Anthony in a 
positive voice. He was quite sure that nothing less 
would account for the gleaming triumph in John’s 
eyes. 

“ But no ! ” Mrs. Quinby’s voice was full of awed 
incredulity. 

“But yes!” Mr. Quinby turned his illumined face 
from the dancing gas jets full upon his wife and 
brother. The dancing light seemed to abide m his 
clear, gray eyes and make him adorably handsome in 
Anna’s fond estimation. 

“ Who is dead ? ” she asks, ready to moderate her 
transports in accordance with the demands of decency, 
but prepared to bear the death of either one of the 
firm with fortitude and resignation. 

“ Nobody ! at least, neither Ford nor Farnham, nor 
Colfax, our ‘ Co.’ ” 

“ But I thought you said all along, John, that they 
had no more use for another partner than a wagon had 
for two tongues.” 

“ Neither have they in New York, but they propose 
to branch out,” says Mr. Quinby. 

“ Branching out ” had such an opulent sound that 
Mrs. Quinby just gave a little gurgle of satisfaction, 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


15 


and sat quite mute, ready to receive the magnificent 
details of the scheme that promised advancement for 
John. 

“ In what direction ? ” 

Just there Mr. Quinby found it expedient to close 
the inside shutters to the front window immediately 
behind his back. He said something about a draught 
when he got up, and something else about sand bags 
when he sat down again. He had rather Anthony 
had not voiced his interest in the subject in form of 
so direct a question. 

“Yes,” he answered, quite as if they had all had 
time to forget every thing that had gone before, “ we 
have outgrown New York. We want more elbow- 
room,” he adds, expansively, while Anna murmurs 
ecstatically, “ delightful ! ” 

“ It’s a pretty solid concern, I guess,” says Anthony, 
contributing a generalization this time. 

“ I should say so. The rock of Gibraltar isn’t any 
more solid.” Mr. Quinby is quite willing to dally 
with his finale. 

“ There are three very solid men at the head of it, too. 
Respectable in every way. And good sound Chris- 
tian principle underlying all their operations. Ford 
and Colfax are both stanch members of Dr. John Hill’s 
church. Farnham, I believe, goes to Talman’s over 
in Brooklyn. Didn’t we hear Mrs. Farnham say so, 
Anna ? ” 


i6 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


really don’t know. Yes, I believe she did, John, 
but I don’t feel at all positive. It’s been a year since 
I saw Mrs. Farnham.” Mrs. Quinby tried to bestir 
her one-idea’d soul to some interest in the moral welfare 
of Ford, Farnham & Co., but was conscious of a shame- 
ful apathy in that direction. At present the partner- 
ship was all that her mind could chamber. 

“ Excellent men, all of them, who would .neither do 
themselves nor ask another man to do any thing con- 
trary to the laws of right and wrong,” says Mr. 
Quinby, continuing the building of his fortifications 
against the hour of attack. “ I’ve never had occasion 
to think any thing but well of them, collectively, and 
individually, since the day I entered their office as a 
me.-senger boy at two dollars a week.” 

rs. Quinby winced perceptibly, and gave rather a 
spiteful twitch to the needleful of blue floss that was 
just then defining a scallop in the white cashmere. Of 
course it was a matter of family history that John had 
begun thus humbly, but one’s antecedents were some- 
what like one’s ancestors, only to be served up when 
occasion required, not hauled in for daily inspection or 
criticism. The days of John’s messenger-boy-ship 
ante-dated her acquaintance with him, and she did not 
propose to cultivate him so far back. 

“Well, to make a long story short, the house sent 
for me this morning, and told me of the final determi- 
nation to establish a branch-house with me as its full 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


17 


head and manager, as the ‘ Co.’ of the New York house 
of Ford, Farnham, Colfax &' Co., with the understand- 
ing that the death or retirement of any member of the 
old firm was to entitle me to step into his vacant place. 
Handsomer showing or more liberal terms, I could not 
ask.” 

“ But where are you to branch to, John ?” asks Mrs. 
Quinby, naturally interested, as the branching process 
must involve herself as well as husband. 

Mr. Quinby flung the remnant of his first cigar into 
the highly ornamental cuspadore that flanked the 
asbestos logs on his side of the fire-place ; bit off the 
end of a second and lighted it at Anthony’s glowing 
one ; assumed an attitude of rather over-done compos- 
ure and projected his explosive into the bosom of his 
family : “ Salt Lake City ! ” 

“Utah!” Anthony and Anna both demanded in a 
breath. 

“ My geography makes mention of no other,” says 
Mr. Quinby, preparing to get behind his fortifications 
and man his guns. 

“ Oh ! John ! ” 

“ Well?” 

He turned his very coldest face toward his wife. He 
had taken unusual pains, he flattered himself, to place 
the advantages of this partnership before her. He did 
not propose to temporize any further. Projecting his 
vision into the future, he saw himself living in the 


i8 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


iniquitous capital of the Mormons, among them but 
not of them, setting a shining example of mono- 
gamic virtue to the weaker brethren around him, even 
proselyting them, by sheer force of example, to forsake 
the error of their ways and cleave only unto one wife 
at a time. Not that he had argued it all out on this 
base. He simply did not care a continental for the 
social relations or religious peculiarities of the dwellers 
in that lovely valley. There was money and prefer- 
ment waiting for him there and he was going after 
them, that was all ! 

Projecting her vision into the future Anna saw her 
husband surrounded by influences confusing to the 
most well established principles. Saw him living in an 
atmosphere of such moral be-fogment that the forms 
of duty and morality all became distorted and mon- 
strous. Saw John first enduring, then pitying, then 
embracing the hideous monster of Mormonism. Saw 
her- own husband, her own exclusive, dear husband, 
reduced to a sum in complex fractions, herself only 
one of numberless numerators with John fora common 
denominator. Salt Lake City had but one aspect for 
her as a woman. That aspect was altogether vile. 
She sat dumb and white while her husband proceeded 
volubly to give Anthony a fuller idea of the scope and 
intention of the new branch house. 

Mr. Quinby was rather unprepared for this mute- 
ness of protest on his wife’s part. It threw him some- 


MOTES AXD BEAMS, 


19 


what out in his reckoning. He had expected wordy 
opposition and had his ammunition all ready for a 
return charge. But how can a man argue against the 
white pain in a woman’s face, or combat the mournful 
plea of a troubled eye ? She sat near enough for him 
to touch her. He laid his large warm hand on hers, 
as she sat with them folded in her lap. Hers were as 
cold as two little lumps of ice and as unresponsive to 
the affectionate pressure, which, perhaps, in all their 
married life had never before failed of its mission. 
Strategy and coaxing are widely differing agencies. 
Mr. Quinby frequently condescended to strategy, 
never to coaxing. 

“Your hands are cold,” he said, quite as if her 
physical temperature were the prime thing under con- 
sideration, and left his warmer one covering them just 
long enough to make sure that no response was coming. 

“ Have you quite decided ? ” Anthony asked, looking 
quickly away from Anna’s white face to the asbestos 
logs. 

“Quite.” 

Mr. Quinby’s voice was altogether uncompromising. 

Mrs. Quinby folded up the study in blue floss with 
dainty precision, pinned the corners of the handker- 
chief together, and said as she came back empty- 
handed from the be-ribboned work-basket : 

“ I think, John, if you and Anthony will excuse me, 
I will go to bed.” 


20 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


‘‘ Do, my dear. You look tired.” Mr. Quinby got 
up, and encircling his wife’s waist with his arm, while 
he held his cigar well out of her face, affectionately 
kissed her good-night. There was no doubt about it. 
Mr. Quinby rarely left undone any one of the things a 
good husband ought to do. 

When the two men were alone Anthony drew nearer 
to the gas logs, and idly poking the shining brass tongs 
which belonged to the fiction of the wood-fire, into the 
shooting jets of flames, asked without looking at his 
brother : 

“ Will it be a very immediate thing ? ” 

“ The opening of the branch house? ” 

“Yes.” 

“1. presume it will. They are only waiting for my 
answer.” • 

A relieved look came into Anthony’s face. “You 
have not given it, then?” 

“No. I have not given it to them. I have no 
idea of letting them see how eagerly I nibble at the 
hook.” 

“ Anna don’t like it, evidently,” says Anthony. 

“ I was quite prepared for opposition in that quarter. 
I’m sorry, but it can not be helped.” 

“ Perhaps she wouldn’t mind it so much at any other 
time.” 

Mr. Quinby stared. 

“ You know it will be pretty rough on her to give up 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


her familiar surroundings and her mother and her own 
doctor just now.” 

“ By George, Tony, you ought to have been a 
woman.” 

Anthony flushed dark red, and the shining tongs fell 
back alongside their shining comrades, shovel and 
poker, with a metallic ring. John reached over, and, 
putting an apologetic hand upon his brother s knee, 
said with affectionate warmth of voice and eye, 

“ Don’t misunderstand me, old fellow. I simply 
meant you were so deucedly thoughtful, just like a 
woman for all the world. You’ve pointed out a hitch 
that had never suggested itself to me.” 

“ Perhaps you could get them to let the branching 
out lay over until you know — well, until after — ” 

A contemplative silence fell between the two men. 
Anthony was thinking that if he succeeded in get- 
ting the day postponed, perhaps Providence would 
lend a helping hand to get the scheme broken up 
altogether. John was inquiring of conscience how 
things could be worked out so as to leave him void of 
offense toward the wife who was the dearest woman in 
all the world, and yet not jeopardize the partnership 
which would elevate him to the very highest round of 
the ladder he had been climbing so patiently and hope- 
fully. He finally broke the silence with his most dicta- 
torial voice : 

“ I have thought of a way, Anthony, to smooth mat- 


22 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


ters for all of us. I certainly can not afford to throw 
away the thing I have been working up to all those 
years, just as it lies within my grasp. Tm not going to 
say I wouldn’t rather the lines had fallen to me here in 
New York. I am sorry Anna takes it so much to 
heart. It is quite absurd, you know, and I beg of you 
not to show her in any way that you share her foolish 
prejudices in this matter. I can see that you do. I 
confess I had looked for something a little broader from 
you. Hang it all! am I a piece of putty to be punched 
into any shape by a lot of latter-day saints or devils for 
whom I haven’t any more respect than for a herd of 
cattle? If I find that in order to secure this partner- 
ship I must go out immediately, I shall do so. I owe it 
to myself, to my wife and to our children,” he added, 
projecting his sense of responsibility a little in advance. 
“ Mrs. Quinby can remain here, in her own house, where 
her mother and her own physician are within stone- 
throw, until she is able to join me. Then you will 
bring her out to me, and we will take up in that new 
land, the old happy life we’ve led here plus another 
element I hope. I’ll talk to Anna to-night.” 

And with a sense of having cut the only knot he was 
not skillful enough to untie, Mr. Quinby stretched his 
fine legs luxuriously along the Smyrna rug, as he leaned 
back in his bent-wood chair and sent long wreaths of 
smoke silently curling ceilingward. 

Looking at him as he sat there in masterful serenity, 


MOTES AND BEAMS. 


23 


Anthony Quinby gave fleeting audience to a train of 
bitter reflection : 

How would it have been if he had come back from 
the wars whole and straight and strong as John was 
now ? John was a mere stripling when he, Anthony, 
had gone away from Elizabeth with his heart full of 
patriotism and love for Anna Abbott. He had meant 
to tell her if he got back safe, but he hadn't gotten 
back safe, at least not sound. He had gotten back 
lopped of an arm and with a distorted shoulder and an 
ugly scar on his cheek. All his beauty gone ! 

So he had never told Anna, or any body else, about 
the foolish fancies he had fed his heart on, in the joy- 
less days of bivouac and battle, and he had kissed her 
for the first time when John had presented her to him 
as a sister, and with God’s help he would be her true and 
loyal brother unto the bitter end. 

“ Well,’’ he said aloud, rising, and reaching for his 
cane, “ I suppose you are going to arrange matters to 
suit yourself.” 

“ I am most likely to do so,” says John, smiling up 
at him blandly through his smoke-wreaths. 

“ Good night ! ” 

“ Good night, Tony.” 

And slumberous silence soon fell on the little house 
in Broad street. 


CHAPTER III. 


TWO LETTERS OF ONE DATE. 

O N the evening of August the fifteenth of the year 
1 88 — , Mr. John Quinby, sitting at a writing table 
in the reading room of the Walker House, Salt Lake 
City, wrote to his brother Anthony as follows : 

“ My dear Tony — As my last was to Anna this shall 
be to you, but as I suppose my letters are common 
property — at least what is yours is hers, if hers is not 
yours — it will do for the family. Moreover, I expect 
more from you in the letter line than from my dear 
little wife, who, no .doubt, is troubled about many 
things at present. My best thoughts are with her and 
of her constantly, and I take immense delight in pic- 
turing to myself’ the happiness we will all take up again 
soon, just where we dropped it a little while back. At 
present, although living en gargon, I am altogether 
comfortable in spite of my separation from my dear 
ones. 

“ I continue to be charmed with the physical features 
of this singularly blessed region, and my respect is also 
imperatively demanded for the men who have in so 


TIVO LETTERS OF ONE DA TE. 25 

marvelously short a period of time, rescued a wilder- 
ness and caused it to blossom like a garden. 

“ As I wrote Anna, I am located at the Walker 
House, where I have first-class accommodations at very 
reasonable rates. The city is well provided with good 
hotels, and in point of thrift, honesty and neatness we 
Gentiles might take many a lesson from these Saints. 
The city has an altitude of four thousand two hundred 
and sixty-one feet above the sea level and the climate 
is absolutely perfect,, in my estimation. The mean sum- 
mer temperature is about seventy-four degrees, and, 
although at present we have reached the maximum of 
•ninety, the heat never continues into the night, and I 
wish I might hope that you and Anna were enjoying 
the delightfully refreshing breeze that keeps my paper 
a-flutter. There is no comparison between the comfort 
of this climate and the average eastern climate of the 
same latitude, and you know when a man has reached 
the point of pulling down the scales at one hundred 
and eighty pounds he is in a frame of mind to appre- 
ciate such advantages. 

“Bring my sweet wife over to me, Tony, well and 
strong, for there is much in this curious land for her 
bright eyes to see, and all the time I can possibly spare 
from my business shall be devoted, to winning her 
over to a genuine liking for the spot which, in all prob- 
ability, will be our home for a good many years to 
come. She will never know what it cost me to come 
3 


26 


THE BAR-SlNlSTEk. 


away without the supreme satisfaction of believing that 
she finally acquiesced in the wisdom as well as the 
necessity for this move on my part. 

‘‘ Salt Lake City is in itself quite imposing, laid off 
with geometrical precision and yet not sacrificing its 
natural beauties. Each street is one hundred and 
thirty-two feet wide, including the sidewalks, which are 
twenty feet in width. The majority of the streets are 
bordered with shade trees and running brooks, the 
foliage of the former concealing the houses so com- 
pletely at this season of the year that the city has the 
appearance of an immense, grove. 

“ Mormon architecture is characterized rather by solid- 
ity than elegance, and the stamp of Brigham Young’s 
individuality is everywhere perceptible. One involun- 
tarily pays tribute of respect to the mind which could 
so dominate all other minds that fell within the scope 
of its magic influence. 

“ One of the most curious objects of interest to me 
here is the ‘Tithing Store.’ It is the custom of the 
Mormons to pay their tithes and donations to the 
church in kind. The farmer brings the products of his 
farm, the herder of the increase of his flocks, the mer- 
chant of his merchandise and so on ad infinitum, a 
truly patriarchal system, which, indeed, is the system 
upon which the entire social fabric rests, with a strong 
under-pinning of Biblical authority ; but the result (of 
the tithing I mean, not of Mormonism) is a complicated 


TH^O LETTERS OF ONE DATE, 


27 


assortment of produce, grain, vegetables, poultry, cattle 
and merchandise, which strikes one fresh from the 
speculative region of Wall street as ponderously incon- 
venient, viewed as change. 

“ I am told that the material thus accumulated is 
paid out to the men who work on the Temples, the 
public lands, clerks and others ; goes toward the sup- 
port of the poor, is doled out to friendly Indians, and, 
in short, answers every purpose of exchange as 
thoroughly well as a more portable currency. 

“ During the summer season two trains run daily to 
Black Rock and Garfield Landing, and you, who are 
familiar with my amphibious nature, can imagine the 
delight I experience in taking the late train, after busi- 
ness hours, for the sole purpose of enjoying a bath in 
the buoyant waters of the lake. The least possible 
effort is necessary to keep one’s equilibrium, and sink- 
ing is out of the question. In the long sunny days of 
mid-summer the water becomes deliciously warm, much 
more so than ocean water. 

“ I am more than ever convinced that Ford, Farnham 
& Co. did a wise thing in establishing this branch just 
at this time. It was a necessity of the trade here, and 
consequently is meeting with more immediate success 
than I had dared hope for. The men with whom my 
business brings me in contact are, as a rule, shrewd, 
clear-headed, upright and practical, with very decided 
views on the subject of money making and money 


28 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


keeping. I have no quarrel with them on that score. 
So far Utah contains no social life for me. I am little 
better than a machine without Anna and you, my two 
good angels. 

Do write to me that she is brave and cheerful and 
reconciled. She is so thoroughly conscientious that 
once she yields a point it is never raked up for fresh 
discussion. That is one of her rare attributes. The 
sweet and lovable ones are many, but you know the 
number and the order of them as well as I do. I have 
written thus fully so that you may see what sort of life 
your absentee is living in his exile.” 

On the evening of August the fifteenth of the year 
1 88 — , Mr. Anthony Quinby, sitting at a writing table 
under the drop-light in the little library of his brother’s 
Elizabeth home, wrote to that brother as follows : 

“ My dear John — I have the library all to myself to- 
night and am taking dismal comfort in filling it with 
tobacco smoke in hopes of driving away a few of the 
pestiferous musquitoes that make life in New Jersey a 
burden at this time of the year. They are laying siege 
to every vulnerable point of me at once, and if I were 
to write just as I feel I am afraid this would be a sting- 
ing epistle. We are having infernally hot weather here 
just now, which, however, distresses me more on Anna’s 
account than on my own. 

“Mrs. Abbott spends most of her time with us lately, 
and Anna keeps up a pretty fair show of cheerfulness. 


7 'l^FO LETTERS OF ONE DATE. 29 

We miss you rather more, I think, than when you first 
left. Then it seemed simply like one of the short 
trips you so often took. The little woman to-day 
wreathed your photograph that hangs over the parlor 
mantel in smilax, remembering what I had forgotten, 
that it was your birth-day. Thirty-five ! What an 
ancient of years you are getting to be ! 

There is literally nothing of interest to write you 
about. The ‘haps’ of Elizabeth are born moldy. 
The only ripple on the stagnant pool that floats society 
here is the return of Dr. Ambrose’s daughter, in con- 
sequence of which the clever old fellow seems to have 
undergone a spiritual rejuvenescence. It is pathetic 
to witness his happiness at having her back. He says 
he has just begun to live, and wonders how he existed 
so long ‘without Efifie.’ To a stranger. Miss Ambrose 
seems scarcely to warrant such ecstasy of devotion, 
even in a doting old man’s breast, but perhaps you will 
remember her better and more favorably than I do, 
for, if I do not mistake, in the callow days of your 
school vacations she received a large proportion of 
your attentions. But all that was before you had seen 
Anna. She is called ‘ very smart ’ by the boys, 
who are afraid of her,- and ‘ eccentric ’ by the older 
men, to whom her physical angularity does not recom- 
mend her. She and Anna have picked up the old girl 
friendship and knotted it together with that easy skill 
women have for mending things that have been broken 


30 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


a long time. I think the episode of her return has 
done your wife good. If you remember she left here 
at the time of her mother’s death to live with a maiden 
aunt. Maiden aunt is gone too, now, leaving Miss 
Ambrose quite an heiress in her own right. She is 
here about as much as Mrs. Abbott is, which is to say 
pretty much all the time. Dr; Ambrose hovers over 
them both (our Anna and his Effie, I mean, not Mrs. 
Abbott) in the most fatherly fashion. 

“Veritably I ought to have been a woman, as you 
half-contemptuously say sometimes. I have sat about 
the house in my helpless worthlessness until there’s no 
grist left in my mental mill but the shrunken grains 
of village gossip. 

“As for commercial gossip and Wall street ondits, 
vide The Commercial Advertiser, The Tribune, and The 
Post, all of which I mail you with this.” 

An hour later, as Anthony, just returned from drop- 
ping this letter into the nearest mail-box, was hanging 
his hat on the rack in the hall, Mrs. Abbott suddenly 
appeared before him with a face full of importance. 
“Telegraph to John, please, that his son Abbott 
Quinby is a remarkably fine child, and that Anna is 
quite well,” she said peremptorily, and vanished. 

“ Bless my soul !” said Anthony, standing still, with 
his arm upraised, quite as if nothing of the sort had 
ever been contemplated. Then he put his hat slowly 
on, and went out into the night again, pondering over 


TM^O LETTERS OF ONE DATE. 


31 


the ever old, ever-ncw mystery of life, and breathing a 
prayer that all might be well for this last comer into a 
world where things had such a faculty for getting 
themselves into a snarl. “Perhaps,” he said to him- 
self a little later, as he softly tip-toed through the hall 
to reach his bedroom noiselessly, “ if the time ever 
comes when Anna needs a comforter— an earthly one 
I mean — she may find it in the little chap who has just 
got here.” 

Who knows ! 


f 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE doctor’s perplexities. 

D r. AMBROSE walked home that night from the 
Quinbys’ in a sagely reflective mood. He had time 
to indulge in such, now that he was relieved from all 
anxiety concerning “ John’s wife,” which was the form 
in which he always thought of Mrs. Quinby, who had 
been entrusted to his guardianship by her husband 
with great impressiveness. 

“ She has fretted so,” he had said, in self-excuse to 
himself for worrying, “ over this idiotic move of John’sto 
Utah, that I did not know what the consequences might 
be.” But John’s wife was all right now, and the doctor 
walked slowly homeward through the sleeping town 
with no harsher sound to disturb his sage reflections than 
the fall of his own heavy tread upon the deserted side- 
walks, or the quicker and more imperious footsteps of 
some blue-coated policeman, who watched while honest 
men slept. Dr. Ambrose was an old-fashioned man, 
with an assortment of old-fashioned notions, and one 
of his favorite topics of thought, as well as of conver- 
sation, was woman and her destiny. Not a strikingly 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 


33 


original topic, one must admit, but one with which, in 
his capacity as physician, the doctor came into close 
and frequent contact. Having forewarned you that 
he was old-fashioned, you will not expect to find him 
entertaining any but the most orthodox views on this 
subject. Woman’s prime mission in life, he held, was 
to marry and to rear children. And she who shirked 
these duties was little short of reprehensible. 

John Quinby’s wife, as he had just left her, white, 
languid, quiescent, with her arms folded rapturously 
about the small atom of humanity that was so uncon- 
scious of its own mission of comforter, such a tiny 
thing to fill a woman’s entire horizon with rosy light ; 
with the mother-love shining in eyes that had just been 
filled with pain and terror, was to him a consecrated 
human being. An almost perceptible halo had seemed 
to encircle Anna’s brow when the divine miracle of life 
had been wrought out once more through her agency. 
John Quinby’s wife was no longer the peevish patient 
over whom he kept stern watch and ward ; she was a 
mother, consecrated to the sweetest duties that can 
come into any woman’s life, duties which, under- 
stood and faithfully performed, would enlarge her 
heart and brain, elevate her entire nature and leave no 
margin for unhealthy repinings touching certain things 
that had not gone according to herwishes of late. He 
was glad to see Anna welcome her boy as a blessing, 
rather than as a burden to be borne with what dignity 


34 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


she could assume. There was too much of the latter 
feeling observable among women of the present day. 
Too much downright rebellion against the decrees of 
Heaven in this respect. Yes, Anna was fulfilling her 
mission in life. How would it be with his own girl? 
With his Effie, who was at once a puzzle and a delight 
to him ? He was afraid Effie had picked up some 
queer notions from that Boston aunt of hers. Queer 
to him at least. “ Advanced notions,” he supposed 
they would be called by people who never liked to call 
a spade “ a spade.” There was no denying that Efhe 
was not just what he had expected to find her, though 
it was hard to find any specific fault with her. She 
was gentle and good and neat, and had quite a turn for 
housekeeping, and seemed to have perfect control of 
what had once promised to be rather an imperious 
temper ; and she was loving enough to him, consider- 
ing their separation of ten years, but still there was 
something lacking! She didn’t seem to have the aver- 
age girl’s appetite for beaux and admiration ; in fact, 
seemed rather nettled than otherwise at the persistent 
attention of some two or three “ fellows ” who seemed 
a little harder to freeze out than their contemporaries. 
To the doctor it seemed as natural for young people 
of the opposite sexes to enjoy each other’s society, and 
to seek it, as for the birds to mate in spring. But Dr. 
Ambrose, at best, was a simple minded old fossil. A 
girl who turned away in manifest disapproval of beaux 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES, 


35 


was a complex organism to him which it was necessary 
to study as one would a problem in trigonometry. Dr. 
Ambrose in his most vigorous mental days had never 
been partial to the exact sciences, and he would infin- 
itely have preferred not to take up the study of his 
only child as if she were an unknown quantity, which, 
indeed, he very much feared she was. 

Perhaps, he thought, (always ready to assume him- 
self in fault), he hadn’t done the right thing by Effiein 
handing her over so trustingly to her mother’s sister. 
But his wife had asked it of him when she was dying, and 
he, as a busy practitioner, had so little time to bestow 
on the lonely child, that it had seemed the only thing 
left to do. And Effie had been very happy with her 
aunt, until that excellent woman suddenly died and 
the girl had been sent back upon her father’s hands, 
leaving him to grope his way into an understanding 
of her, but ready to take her into his warm, capacious 
heart all unexplained as she was. He had discovered 
in the first week of her return that she was not — well, 
not quite like other young people. “A little too 
intense,” is how he would have described her, if he had 
been compelled to put his perplexities into words. 
Considering intensity a sort of malady, you know, sub- 
versive of that natural joyousness that goes with all 
healthy young organisms, he had fostered her intimacy 
with John Quinby’s wife as a most desirable antidote. 

“ I’d like to have some of the blue rubbed off my 


36 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

girl,” he had informed Mrs. Abbott'confidentially, “ and 
it does me good to hear Anna begin to talk John 
whenever Effie begins to talk ethics.” 

He did not tell Mrs. Abbott (he was too carefully 
courteous of that lady’s feelings) that her Anna pos- 
sessed just the element of commonplace which his 
Efifie lacked. And Mrs. Quinby’s companionship had 
seemed thoroughly acceptable to Miss Ambrose. She 
had known Anna all her life and she seemed to shrink 
with a most unaccountable distaste from the form- 
ation of any new ties. Quite unnatural, you know ! 
Altogether queer ! ” the doctor had said in his despair 
at her obstinacy on this point and her failure to account 
for it satisfactorily. It distressed him, this unrespon- 
sive attitude she had assumed toward the good Eliza- 
bethans, who had flocked to welcorne her home, some 
for her “ dear mother’s sake,” some for “their good 
doctor’s sake,” and some avowedly declaring that they 
considered a young lady “ reared in the cultivated 
atmosphere of Boston, as quite an acquisition to poor 
little Elizabeth.” 

In those lonely days of his, during his daughter’s 
Boston residence. Dr. Ambrose used to console himself 
with the building of air castles that always had their 
foundations in Eflie’s early marriage. She was to 
marry some fellow who was to love her very much 
indeed, and be just as good to her as her merits 
demanded (which was of course to bespeak super-ex- 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 


37 


cellence for this young man), and they were all to live 
happily together in the old house where Effie had been 
born and he had lived all his married life, and he was 
to begin life all over again in Effie's boys and girls. 
This vision of patriarchal blessedness did not present 
itself as a remote possibility of the future. It was sim- 
ply the finale to this time of lonely probation for him 
and active preparation for her. For with Dr. Ambrose 
all education for womankind tended, or should tend, to 
prepare her for the inevitable conclusions of wife-hood 
and maternity. As Mrs. Quinby and Effie were con- 
temporaneous, he felt in a sense defrauded that his vis- 
ion was still nothing but a baseless fabric, while John 
Quinby’s happiness had been an assured fact for some 
years. 

“ She freezes the fellows out, one by one ; hanged 
if I know what notion she has got in her head,” said 
Dr. Ambrose this night in a sudden culmination of 
impatience as he stepped on to his low portico with 
his mind still running on Effie, and her provoking in- 
difference to the object so near his own affectionate 
heart. “ Maybe Anna’s baby will fetch her round,” 
he said, smiling at the conceit as it took possession of 
him one second, but was forgotten the next, in surprise 
at seeing so bright a light still streaming through the 
hall and from the open parlor door. Then he softly 
tip-toed over the fluffy rugs that deadened his foot-fall 
with the stealthy habit that he had long since - 


38 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


by coming home all hours of the night and respecting 
the slumbers of his household. 

He glanced into the parlor on his way to the hat- 
rack. Effie was not there. He hadn’t expected she 
would be. She always sat in the snug little back par- 
lor behind the portieres. She seemed to fit into it so 
prettily ; but, since she had filled it up with the easels, 
and brackets, and be-ribboned wicker chairs, and hand- 
embroidered screens, and cabinets full of rare bits of 
china, and big vases and little vases, and Japanese 
wonders of all sorts, he had felt bulky and out of place 
in it, and seldom staid there long, as Effie was a foe to 
tobacco in any shape and that was one solace he could 
not relinquish. He stopped in the triangle of light 
made by the looped back portieres that divided the 
two parlors. Yes, there she was sitting by the little 
spider-legged brass table with its lace-fringed velvet 
cover, the bright light from the chandelier over her 
head flooding her with brightness. Her clear cut pro- 
file was turned toward him. Miss Ambrose was 
slightly disappointing to people whose first glimpse of 
her was a sidewise one. The lines about her chin and 
the corners of her mouth were so much softer, the nose 
so much more classic, and a certain droop to the eye- 
brow so much more graceful than in a fuller front view. 
She had been reading, but at the moment of her father’s 
invasion she sat with the open book face downward in 
her lap and her folded hands rested upon its lids. How 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 


39 


pretty she looked in the old man’s eyes ! She had not 
yet lost the charm of novelty for her father. In fact, 
physically as well as mentally, she was an altogether 
different being from the plump girl with a voracious 
appetite and two long plaits down her back with knots 
of red ribbon tied on the fluffy ends, that he had de- 
posited, frightened and sobbing, in Miss Priscilla Water- 
man’s arms a decade before. This thin, delicate feat- 
ured young lady — chiefly noticeable for the prim erect- 
ness of her carriage and the serious gravity of her large 
gray eyes ; who always spoke in the measured tones and 
the soft, cultured voice of a woman who had out-grown 
every impulse to hurry her views into notice — was ex- 
tremely attractive, but a trifle inaccessible even to him 
who yearned so for a fuller return of the love he had 
waited for a long, long time. To the simple mind of 
the doctor seriousness was but one phase of sorrow. 
Why should his girl, who, since the far-away shock of 
a mother’s death, had never known a shadow of trouble 
or care, take life with such tremendous gravity } He 
was perpetually tempted to ask her what was the mat- 
ter, but was deterred by fear of making the puzzle still 
more puzzling. In reality. Miss Ambrose had a most 
embarrassing way of looking at one, if one did but say 
the morning was a fine one, quite as if she expected 
one to follow up that truism with a scientific exposi- 
tion of the barometric conditions that had produced 
the fineness in question ; and one was constantly im- 


40 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


pressed with the futility of one’s efforts to entertain or 
enlighten so thoroughly self-contained a young woman. 
Not that the doctor’s daughter was ever consciously 
rude or lacking in gentle courtesy. She was simply 
not interested in any thing that was going on about her, 
and was too thoroughly indifferent to what people 
thought or said of her to make an effort to conceal it. 

“ Well, my pet ! ” 

She started convulsively and her book slipped from 
her relaxed clasp to the floor. She must have been 
very far away in the spirit for her father’s familiar voice 
and the familiar words to startle her so. 

“ Caught you napping, hey ! you ought to have been 
in bed two hours ago. Suppose you couldn’t sleep, 
though, until you had heard the news.” 

The doctor stooped with creaking knee-joints to re- 
cover the fallen book, and laid it on the table behind 
his daughter, as he bent over and kissed her heartily. 

“What news?” she asked, in that slow, unhurried 
way of hers, rewarding his warm caress with a shy 
fleeting smile. “No, I wasn’t asleep, I was startled, 
you came in so noiselessly. I had just finished reading 
about Margaret Fuller, and was thinking, that was all. 
You have been with Anna ? ” 

“Yes. And she sends word you must come over 
very early in the morning to see Mr. Abbott Quinby.” 

“ Mr. Abbott Quinby ! oh yes, but I think I 
will wait awhile. Babies are only interesting to their 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 41 

very nearest relatives at this early stage' of their devel- 
opment. I am afraid I should find it very hard to 
say any thing pleasant about it to Anna, poor child, 
and I shouldn’t care to say unpleasant truths to 
her.” 

“Why I thought you liked John’s wife? ” says the 
doctor with clumsy irrelevance. 

“So I do, immensely!” Effie’s serious eyes were 
turned on him questioningly. The doctor had seated 
himself in one of the most substantial chairs in the 
room and sat curling the long ends of his iron gray 
mustache abstractedly while he pondered his daugh- 
ter’s cold impassiveness to her friend’s suffering and 
triumph ! 

Miss Ambrose’s eyes saved her lips an immense 
amount of exertion. On the present occasion they 
impelled her father to apologize for his somewhat tart 
tones of a moment before. 

“ Beg your pardon, pet, but you are so deucedly un- 
demonstrative. Anna thinks so much of you that I 
really would like to see you warm up a little more to 
her baby. I thought all women were by all babies, as 
all girls are by all dolls — you know, took to them 
naturally.” 

“ I can’t recall that I ever did take to dolls, as you 
express it. Papa, can you ? I remember I had quite 
a lot in my trunk when I went to Boston, but Aunt 
Priscilla had so many more interesting things and was 
4 


42 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


SO kind in entertaining me with them that I ended by 
giving all my dolls away.” 

“What were Priscilla’s more interesting things?" 
the doctor asked, always eager for any information that 
would throw light on the mental processes that had 
evolved this finished young lady out of his very crude 
darling. 

“ Oh ! I don’t knaw ; such a variety of things — micro- 
scopes and aquariums and geometrical puzzles, and 
mission-schools and ” 

“ Mission schools ! Was that among your amuse- 
ments ? ” 

The doctor indulged in so hearty a laugh at Miss 
Priscilla’s expense that his daughter’s pale face grew 
decidedly pink with resentment, and she said a little 
less slowly than usual, 

“You knew Aunt Priscilla was not a frivolous per- 
son when you put me with her, didn’t you, papa ?” 

“ I shouldn’t have been likely to put you with her 
if she had been,” he said, wiping away the tears that 
had filled his eyes to overflowing; “but, Jerusalem 
the golden ! ” He was off again, brutally merry at the 
idea of any fun being extracted from a mission-school. 

If Miss Ambrose had not been a foe to all emotion 
that did not have its foundation in some great under- 
lying principle of right or wrong, she would have grown 
actively angry at this juncture, but her Aunt Pris- 
cilla’s philosophic teachings were not so far back in 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 


43 


the past that she could forget herself and show her 
temper. She simply folded her hands and looked a 
little graver than usual. 

Dr. Ambrose, reasoning from a very narrow concep- 
tion of the female character, had fallen into a very 
grave error concerning this daughter of his. Her cold 
imperturbability under the raillery which was pur- 
posely exaggerated in order to pique her into some 
warmth of defense, was mistaken for an indication that 
no such warmth existed. “ She has had all feeling 
cultured out of her,” was his hasty and disappointed 
conclusion. On the contrary, it had been concentrated 
and intensified until it filled her heart with a concrete 
of emotions that nothing but a volcanic shock would 
convert into a stream of molten lava, destructive in its 
escape, perilous in its onward sweep. 

There was that within this quiet-seeming girl that 
only awaited the touch of some tremendous inspira- 
tion to make her frail form quiver with sensibility. 
Her nature was like a skiff in stormy weather — a craft 
badly in need of a strong helmsman. 

“ I was very happy with Aunt Priscilla,” she said 
presently, “ and she was very, very good to me. She 
was a grand woman, father. She tried very hard to 
gird up my loins for the battle.” 

“What battle?” Dr. Ambrose asked, a trifle im- 
patiently, for, to his seeing, there was no call for Effie 
to do any thing but to enjoy herself like other girls and 


44 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


be happy in the very placid sphere of life that it had 
pleased God to place her. He did not like to hear her 
talk in this unsheltered fashion. 

“ The battle with the powers of evil, which, sooner 
or later, I suppose, we are all called upon to engage 
in,” Efifie answers with undue solemnity. 

Tut, child ! You’re sleepy. You’re growing owl- 
ish. Nearly twelve o’clock. Kiss me and go to bed.” 

Effie obeyed him to the extent of rising immediately, 
and as she stood before him, almost tall enough to look 
straight into his tender eyes and rugged face, she put 
her little hands on his shoulders, and said in that sur- 
charged voice of hers that had so much wasted tragedy 
in it, and yet with affectionate entreaty, 

“ Father, if you love me any better, or any differently 
from what you did when I was little better than a kit- 
ten scampering about the house for your amusement, 
don’t ever treat me so contemptuously again. I don’t 
like it. Some men think they have achieved a triumph 
of manliness when they laugh at instead of frowning 
down any thing a woman says or does that is not in 
strict accordance with all their preconceived notions ; 
but I don't want to class my'dear, dear father with the 
men who can not afford to reason with women. Good- 
night. I foresee that we are going to differ about a 
great many things, but we can keep on loving each 
other straight through it all, can’t we, papa, dear?” 

Straight through all and all, my darling,” says Dr. 


THE DOCTOR'S PERPLEXITIES. 45 

Ambrose, folding his great arms about the girl’s slim 
waist and shoulders, and kissing her with pardoning 
tenderness. 

Then she went away from him leaving him more and 
more perplexed about her. Conscious, more than 
ever, that the element of placid comfort was not likely 
to enter largely into his daily companionship with his 
daughter. 

“ It’s going to be very like living in the close neigh- 
borhood of Mount Vesuvius,” he sighed, taking his 
own bedroom candle from the hall table, “ with no 
data by which to prognosticate eruptions. She’s a sweet 

child beneath it all. It all comes of that con ” 

even in the privacy of his own room. Dr. Ambrose hes- 
itated over completing an entirely condemnatory sen- 
tence upon Miss Priscilla Waterman’s method of rear- 
ing girls. 


CHAPTER V. 


THE DAY OF DEPARTURE. 

^ ^ T WISH it didn’t all look so pretty, you know, in its 
1 bright autumn dress! I’d rather have it looking 
uglier than ugly. Oh ! Anthony, will any spot ever be 
to me what this one has been ? Just look at my pretty 
tulip bed I It is dazzling ! ” 

Mrs. Quinby did not want an answer, for which An- 
thony was thankful in the extreme. She walked away 
from him, where he was stooping, paste-brush in hand, 
sticking labels on the numberless trunks and boxes 
that were piled in the front portico of the Quinbys’ 
house, even then awaiting the city express to take 
them down to the depot, Anna’s plaintive little wails 
were quite natural, but they were more than thrice- 
told tales now, and since the thing had become inevi- 
table, he discouraged all discussion of the “ cons ” of 
the case, so far as was possible. He heard her go out 
into the little garden that was ablaze with tulips and 
scarlet geraniums and brilliant foliage plants, which 
she gathered with reckless profusion, filling her hands 
and straw hat with the costly beauties of which she 
was generally quite niggardly. 


THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 


47 


“Who will care to-morrow how the garden looks?” 
she said, in extenuation of her recklessness as she came 
back to Anthony and the luggage. “ Look, Tony, the 
tulips are bigger and brighter than ever before. I’ll 
crowd the tea-table with the beauties. Effie and the 
doctor are coming to take away the dismalness of this 
last meal for us. The dear old place seems to be laugh- 
ing instead of sorrowing because we are going. Oh ! 
Anthony, it is well John is at the other end, or my 
heart would break at loosing its hold of this one. I 
have to keep on saying over and over to myself, ‘John 
is there. John wants me. John is waiting. John 
wants baby and me.’ ” 

Two big tears splashed down Mrs. Quinby’s cheeks, 
and fell in the gay tulips in her hands. A little chok- 
ing sob reached Anthony’s ears, and made the hand 
that held the paste-brush tremble a little. A very big 
and sprawling “ Q ” on the end of a brand new trunk 
was the result. 

“ Don’t let that one get lost, Tony, whatever hap- 
pens. All baby’s flannels are in it, and what would be- 
come of us if they were lost ? ” says Mrs. Quinby, anx- 
iously, into whose consciousness it had never yet pene- 
trated that outside New York and its environs the re- 
quirements of a civilized life could be procured. 

“ We don’t propose to lose any of them,” said An- 
thony, rising from his stooping posture and with paint- 
brush in hand reviewing the mountain of luggage be- 


48 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


fore him in the anxious desire to impress the individual 
features of each separate article upon his bewildered 
memory; ‘‘but if such a calamity should befall,” smil- 
ing re-assurance into Anna’s face, “ I don’t imagine 
young Quinby will have to go flannel-less all the rest 
of his days. I am afraid that John’s efforts to convince 
you that you are going into a great center of civiliza- 
tion, rather than a howling wilderness, have all been 
tTirown away on you.” 

“ I am not prepared to find one good or admirable 
thing there,” Mrs. Quinby says, very positively. “John 
has chosen to go there and I am compelled to do so.” 
Then suddenly seating herself on one of the ridgy 
trunks, she asks abruptly : 

“Tony ! do you believe in your heart that we will all, 
you and John and baby and I, ever be so happy out 
yonder as we could have been here ? ” 

“ Why what a creature it is to reason in a circle ! ” 
Anthony answers vaguely. “ I had come to regard 
John’s going ahead of you as quite a bit of strategy. 
I thought your soul panted for Utah as the heart pant- 
eth for the water-brooks. Let me see ! one, two 
Saratogas, regular dromedaries for carrying capacity as 
well as general bumpiness. One black, flat-topped 
trunk, one yellow ditto. Two canvas-covered of hon- 
est old sole-leather, covers dingy enough to suggest 
several trips around the world ; very much be-labeled, 
one marked ‘ A. A.,’ the other, bold ‘ Q.’ I’ll venture 


THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 


49 


to say those trunks went with you and John on your 
bridal trip.” 

They did,” said Mrs. Quinby, smiling down on the 
dingy canvas covers, “ and such a trip as it was ! ” 

“ You took in the ‘Falls of course. And had your 
pictures taken there?” 

“Yes, oh yes, of course, and I held on to John’s 
legs while he reached far over a terrible ledge to get 
me a piece of golden-rod.” 

“ Of course you have it put away somewhere pressed.” 

Of course! You know it’s not every man would 
have done such a thing, Anthony, especially for his 
wife. Men are ready enough to risk their necks or 
heads for girls before they are sure of them, but they 
do grow so masterful afterward.” 

“True!” says Mr. Quinby, abstractedly, returning 
to his labels, while Mrs. Quinby launched into a fuller 
description of the bridal trip, memories of which had 
been conjured up by the old trunks. Not that he did 
not know it all by rote, but he was satisfied to have 
Anna talk on endlessly about any thing but the ethics 
of their hegira. 

He had done all he could to dissuade John from tak- 
ing this step when the subject was first broached, but 
since it had become inevitable he had equally discour- 
aged all discussion of it, with that manly directness 
that entered into all his sayings and doings. His 
silent pity was poured out for John’s wife abundantly. 


50 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


He pitied her for the wrench it gave her tender heart 
to sever all the old home ties ; and he pitied her for 
what he knew she would be called on to endure in the 
strange atmosphere of her new home. He pitied her 
for possessing in such excess the very sensibilities that 
made her now so thoroughly sweet and lovable. As 
for himself, this move involved no special hardship. 
There were no ties to sunder. John, John’s wife and 
J ohn’s boy were the trinity of his acceptance. Wherever 
they were, all that he could ever know of home life and 
home happiness must be found. So he could very well 
afford to be placid even in presence of the chaos that had 
been evolved out of order in the tumult of preparation 
for their journey. He felt culpable at not bearing a 
larger share of the suffering involved in this move. 
He would gladly have borne it all if possible. 

Mrs. Abbott joined them presently, carrying the 
baby on one arm, with the skill of a veteran in service, 
while with her disengaged hand she dragged after her 
a light rocker, which she located in the neighborhood 
of the luggage and seated herself in it with her precious 
burden of pink flesh and manifold draperies. Her eyes 
were bright and dry. If she had any tears to shed 
she did not propose to bedew the baby’s new traveling 
hood and cloak with them. Mrs. Abbott was a 
thoroughly sensible woman. She held to the time- 
honored patriarchal notion that the husband is the 
judicial head. She would rather not give Anna 


THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 51 

up SO completely, but she meant when she got the 
other children all settled off, to divide her time equally 
among them. Salt Lake City was not so far off but 
she could go there in an emergency. She never dis- 
tinctly formulated any possible emergency, but she 
held, in common with the less sensible of her sex, that 
Utah was a land of every sort of possibilities in the 
way of emergencies. 

“ It will be a mercy, Anna,” she said, glancing 
cautiously back over her shoulder toward the interior 
of the house which they had all shunned in these last 
moments, it was so dreadfully suggestive of a wreck in 
its dismantled condition, “ if that creature does not 
break her own head and this precious baby’s too.” 
Mrs. Abbott passed a caressing hand over the round 
head that rested on her arm as if to assure herself it 
had not already sustained some irreparable injury. 
“What do you suppose I found her doing? Sitting 
in one chair with her feet on the round of another, 
the baby across her lap, while she plaited that long 
yellow hair of hers! Do look well after her, Tony.” 

Mrs. Quinby gave a little horrified shriek and fell 
on her knees by baby’s long skirts, cautiously feeling 
her way up to the soft pink toes that were a perpet- 
ual delight to her. Evidently the baby was in “ good 
condition,” as we say of express packages. Anthony 
added one English nurse-maid to the mental list of his 
responsibilities for the next many days to come. And 


5 ^ 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


then they all fell into wordlessness, staring about them 
like people who have said all they had to say to each 
other on every conceivable topic for some time to come. 
There was an under-current of emotion in each one of 
their hearts that made “ talk ” difficult and desultory. 

“There’s the doctor and Effie!” Mrs. Abbott says in 
tones of positive relief. The sound of her lazy rocking 
had been painfully audible for some seconds. “ And 
how handsome Effie is looking. She has quite a color 
for her,” all this, in the short space of time it takes Dr. 
Ambrose and his daughter to walk across the narrow 
strip of front yard that Mrs. Quinby has just despoiled 
of flowers. 

“ So you will go ! we can’t keep you ! ” says Dr. 
Ambrose, appropriating one of the flat-topped trunks 
and beaming benevolently around at the disorder about 
him. “ I suppose you’ve telegraphed John.” 

“ Yes. He knows we start to-night ! ” says Anthony, 
while Anna, never loosing her affectionate hold of Miss 
Ambrose’s hand, leads her straightway up to the shrine 
of her own idolatry. 

“ You’ve never said he was pretty yet. You must 
say something nice for him before I take him away 
forever.” 

Miss Ambrose bent over, determined to be as effusive 
as possible, and murmured something inarticulate, while 
her heart went out in thankfulness for her father’s gar. 
rulity. 


THE DA Y OF DEPARTURE. 


S3 


“ Forever ! That’s a stupendous word. We’re think- 
ing of coming out to pay you a visit as soon as you are 
settled. 

“Tell John to write me word how the Saints deal 
with the question of family doctors, rather an embar- 
rassing one, I should imagine. Effie and I are thinking 
of going over as reformers. I’ll heal their bodies while 
she looks after their souls. We are conscious of the emp- 
tiness of life in this overdone section of the country, 
and we feel the premonitory symptoms of missionary- 
zeal burning in our breasts ! Isn’t that how it is, daugh- 
ter?” 

Miss Ambrose’s grave eyes rested disapprovingly on 
her father’s laughing face for a second, then traveled 
out to the ravaged tulip beds. “Your tulips were so 
lovely yesterday, Anna : what has happened to them 
all ? ” she asked with no lifting of the gravity that 
seemed part of her facial expression. 

“ I’ve buried the tea-table under them,” said Anna. 
“ I was foolish enough to think the new people 
would be getting some of my heart with my pretty 
tulips.” 

“ You’ve let the house furnished, I believe,” says the 
doctor. 

“ Yes, to some rich Jew ! You know the flowers would 
be thrown away on them,” says Mrs. Quinby, with Gen- 
tile superiority. 

“ For how long ? ” 


54 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ Five years,” says Anthony, “ a good lease. Anna 
preferred not to sell.” 

“ Best not burn your ships behind you. You can 
hold it in terror over John, if wives multiply too fast, 
that you’ve a house of your own to go back to. I’ve 
heard it said that half those poor devils over yonder — 
the women I mean — are held in bondage for the want of 
means to get away or a place to go to.” 

To the doctor, as to most men, Salt Lake City was a 
standing inspiration of poor wit, and the occasion 
was never wasted. Anthony’s nicer perception 
showed him how the clumsy jest grated on more than 
one of the women present. He flung himself into the 
breach. 

“ By the way, doctor, perhaps it would help you and 
Miss Ambrose to picture Anna in her new home, if I 
were to read you John’s description of it, in the letter 
that reached us yesterday.” He felt in the inside- 
pocket of his coat and produced the letter. 

“ Let’s have it by all means,’’ and, clasping his arms 
around the leg he had recklessly crossed, unmindful of 
his precarious position on the high trunk, Dr. Ambrose 
assumed an interested attitude. 

“ What a statuesque creature ; who is it ? ” Miss Am- 
brose asks in a low voice of Anna, while they are wait- 
ing for Anthony to open his letter. It is slow work 
with his one hand, but he is not awkward about it. 

It is Barbara ! and she has con^e to say tea is ready. 


THE DA V OF DEPARTURE. 


55 


The letter will have to wait, Tony, or you can read it 
at table. She’s baby’s nurse,” Mrs. Quinby added 
explanatorily to Effie, quite as if that were cause 
enough for any one’s being. 

Standing with folded arms in the open door-way was 
the girl whom Miss Ambrose had just called statuesque, 
and whom a little while back Mrs. Abbott had called a 
‘'stupid creature.” Perhaps she was both. With her 
superb figure, and full red lips, and ox eyes and crimped 
muslin cap, she was certainly picturesque, even when 
not posing motionlessly preferring in her slow, dull fash- 
ion to await discovery of her presence and purpose 
rather than to announce glibly that tea was served, and 
bring down upon her a battery of eyes. She showed 
the tips of her strong white teeth in a smile that illumi- 
nated her stolid features like a burst of sunshine on a 
stone wall, in gratitude for being saved any words, and 
held out her hands to take the baby from Mrs. Abbott. 

“ For mercy’s sake, Barbara, don’t drop him, and 
don’t plait your hair over him, either,” says Mrs. 
Quinby, standing still to see nurse and baby safely 
located in the chair. 

Barbara’s eyes dropped upon the child’s head, her 
cheeks flamed, but no smile came this time. 

“ You have hurt her feelings,” says Mrs. Abbott, as 
the three women walked in after the doctor and 
Anthony, “ and these foreign creatures are so resent- 
ful.” 


56 


THE BAHSINISTER. 


“ Can’t she talk at all ? ” Miss Ambrose asked. 

“Yes, oh yes. She can make herself understood 
very well when she wants to. I believe she hates to 
talk,” says Anna, settling herself behind the tea-tray. 

“ An untenable hypothesis considering her sex,” the 
doctor says, calling on his stock of patent jests, which 
is inexhaustible. Then, amid the subdued clatter of the 
teaspoons and sugar tongs as Anna fills the cups, 
Anthony reads aloud Mr. Quinby’s last letter, in which 
he describes the pretty two-storied house, delightfully 
sheltered by rustling cotton-wood trees, and so 
situated as to give a charming glimpse of the Lake and 
the river Jordan, in every material respect a vast im- 
provement on the Elizabeth house, that awaits the 
coming of its mistress, and in which John has already 
established himself. 


CHAPTER VI. 


MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 
NTHONY’S telegram to his brother, telling him 



n that baby and suite were on the eve of depart- 
ure for Utah found that gentleman in his normal con- 
dition of satisfaction with himself and his achievings. 
His latest achievement had been the procuring and re- 
pairing and furnishing of a house for the reception of 
his family, which, he quite flattered himself, would com- 
pare most favorably with the deserted nest in Eliza- 
beth. He had taken immense interest in every detail 
of its fitting up, and when he had located a brand new 
sewing-machine by the sunniest window in the pretty 
little library, and bought a lovely blue and white 
zephyr-wool spread for the swinging cradle that cuddled 
close by the side of the big bed in the chamber that 
Anna was to occupy, he was morally convinced that 
no man could do more to insure the happiness of a 
woman than he had done for Mrs. Quinby. Anthony's 
telegram found him at the new address of this house, 
where he slept of nights and was already getting to 
feel quite as if it was his home, but which he locked up 


5 


58 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


of mornings when he went off to the Cliff House for 
his meals. The servant problem was too grave a one 
for him to grapple. Anna must see to that when she 
got there. He hoped the house would strike her as 
especially delightful, coming straight to it travel stained 
and wearied. 

“ In every respect an improvement on the old nest,” 
Mr. Quinby repeated, walking as far as the bay-window 
of the front parlor and turning to observe from that 
distance the effect of the curtains that had been put up 
to the library windows that day. Anna’s forte was 
color. The portieres that divided the library from the 
front parlor were a rich wine color striped with old 
gold, and he had ordered the curtains should blend 
harmoniously. Yes! he believed they did! By the 
light of the soft shade over the drop light in the center 
of the room all the hangings seemed to harmonize 
delightfully. By the way, he mustn’t forget to order 
book-shelves for Anthony’s room to-morrow. Tony’s 
comfort was a very important item, too. A ring at his 
front door made Mr. Quinby start so violently that the 
ash from the cigar he was smoking fell in a gray shower 
over his vest front. It was so entirely unexpected, and 
the sound of his own door-bell had, up to that moment, 
never smitten his ear. These gongs, striking just in- 
side a front door, were startling abominations anyhow ! 
It could be nothing but another telegram from An- 
thony. He had left orders at the office for them to be 


MR. QUIN BY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE, 59 

sent down if any arrived. He hoped nothing was 
wrong. No disappointment, nor delays, nor anything 
of that sort. He laid his cigar down on the mantel in 
the back library and passed out through that room into 
the unlighted hall. It was scarcely worth the trouble 
of lighting the gas just to take a telegram from a 
messenger, so he left the library door open and a feeble 
ray of light found its way along the hall to the front 
door which Mr. Quinby opened and sent out into the 
darkness made visible a somewhat peremptory : 

“ Well ? ” 

Bishop Shaw — Mr. Quinby ! ” came blandly from 
the outer darkness, where Mr. Quinby could just see 
two dimly-outlined human figures, that stood mute and 
motionless after that blind introduction. 

“ A thousand pardons. Bishop Shaw. One moment, 
if you please. Just step inside. I hadn’t an idea it 
was any one but a messenger with a telegram or some- 
thing of that sort, you know. It would be rather in- 
accurate to say I’m glad to see you, when I’ve only 
heard you so far.” All this in the fleet second it took 
Mr. Quinby to find his match-safe in the side pocket 
of his coat, and light the low-hanging hall-lamp, which 
discovered to view an elderly couple, of the quietly 
genteel order, standing just inside the front door they 
had obligingly closed for him while he was fumbling 
for a match. One of them he was quite sure he had 
never seen before, the other one he had very especial 


6o 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


commercial reasons for desiring to propitiate. Bishop 
Shaw was not only a power in the community, but he 
was in an indirect way useful to the business concern 
which Mr. Quinby represented. 

My wife Laetitia, Mr. Quinby — the first Mrs. Shaw ” 
— says the bishop, when they all stand revealed to each 
other, affably indicating by a motion of the hat he had 
just taken off a diminutive lady dressed in a house 
dress of black silk, and with only a zephyr hood thrown 
over her curly gray hair, by which Mr. Quinby knows 
that they can not have come from much of a distance 
to pay him this unsolicited visit. 

Mr. Quinby repeats his apologies for his seeming in- 
hospitality over the delicate white hand the bishop’s 
wife Laetitia holds out to him, and leads the way back 
to the library, where he installs the lady in the big 
plush easy-chair, which he has already come to think 
of as “ Anna’s chair,” not without a conscious qualm 
at the thought of what Anna’s attitude would be if 
she only knew. He turned the gas well up before 
seating himself, determined to get as much as possible 
out of this first glimpse of the social life of which he 
and his wife must partake in a more or less remote 
degree. 

Report had familiarized him with the number of 
Bishop Shaw’s wives — ^^only five ! He supposed it was 
due to atmospheric influences that he felt so little of a 
shock at receiving under his own roof a member of so 


MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 6i 

complacent a home circle. But then, he reiterated to 
himself, the social aspect of this community was fund 
for his curiosity only, and unless Anna had altered 
considerably during his few months' absence from her, 
his chances to satisfy that curiosity would be very 
much diminished after her arrival. He felt thankful 
in a degree that Bishop Shaw had selected his first wife 
for this unexpected neighborly advance. There must 
always be an air of authenticity about number one that 
is not transferable, in the monogamic mind, to succeed- 
ing wives. 

The bishop and his wife presented some very strik- 
ing physical contrasts that impressed themselves upon 
Mr. Quinby, as he, seated between them, gave them 
his attention politely and impartially. The bishop's 
rotundity was in sharp contrast with his wife's angular- 
ity, his ruddiness with her pallor, his soldierly air of 
command with her gentleness of acquiescence. Not 
that just such suggestiveness of the man's having the 
better of things generally was not as frequently to be 
seen elsewhere, Mr. Quinby assured himself, for no 
one could look into Mrs. Shaw's serene face and doubt 
her perfect satisfaction with her lot in life as it was. 

She was a pleasing object for contemplation to the 
young man, whose acquaintance heretofore had been 
confined to the commercial circles of Salt Lake City. 
Her soft white hair, arranged in two little bunches of 
crisp curls, shaded a forehead uncreased by any lines 


62 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


excepting those traced by the finger of Time. Her 
clear gray eyes were as untroubled as two mountain 
lakelets, that have never reflected any thing except the 
blue of the skies above them. She had a sweet, patient 
mouth, and a queer little trick of waiting, with the pro- 
found respect of a little child, for her turn in the con- 
versation, quite, you know, as if she had learned to be 
satisfied with a fraction of attention, and was not im- 
bued with any feminine spirit of exaction. But the 
bishop’s leadership, even in the matter of smiles, was 
always promptly seconded by her wifely co-opera- 
tion. She seemed quite content, sitting there 
in Mr. Quinby’s pretty library, with her blue- 
veined hands clasped about a newspaper she 
had brought with her, to absorb the chat of the 
men and to smile her appreciation of any good point 
made by her husband' or their host. Not that Mrs. 
Shaw lacked intelligence of her own or was deficient 
in the matter of views : she had both in galore, and 
was a favorite contributor to the “Woman’s Expo- 
nent,” a copy of which she had brought with her 
and to which she intended Mr. Quinby should become 
a subscriber before she left the house. But she had out- 
lived the age when a woman considered it necessary to 
be constantly vindicating herself as a thinking animal 
by the vigorous action of her tongue, in consequence 
of which her ideas had time to crystallize, and her 
mental conclusions were generally as clear cut as 


MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 63 

cameos and quite as precious in the eyes of Her hus- 
band, who was very fond of assuring his friends that 
“ Mrs. Laetitia Shaw was a very remarkable woman, a 
very remarkable woman indeed, sir! ” 

While Bishop Shaw and Mr. Quinby talked stocks 
and trade and the political outlook of Utah with 
friendly frankness, Mrs. Shaw was taking in every 
detail of the room they sat in, with feminine quickness 
of approval. 

All this home comfort seemed to lack a vindication. 
Surely that selfish monster of a man, if he did come from 
New York, where men were conceded to be more self- 
ish and more monstrous than any where else on the 
globe, could not have fitted up such a home as this 
for his own exclusive use ! She had heard that he was 
a Gentile totally untouched by the teachings of the 
New Gospel; perhaps they had all been culpably 
indifferent to his enlightenment. It was with a view 
of remedying her own shortcomings in this respect 
that she had brought with her the “ Woman’s Expo- 
nent.” Surely a Mormon paper in which was chroni- 
cled the doings of Mormon women, telling about their 
relief and charitable societies, and taking a vigorous 
stand in defense of their political rights, edited by 
Mormon women, ought to be a powerful agency in 
removing the scales of ignorance and prejudice from 
the handsome eyes of this new-comer. But perhaps 
they — the scales — had already fallen, for if the fitting 


64 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Up of this elegant home did not mean a determination 
on his part to be sealed soon, what did it mean ? 

Thus Mrs. Shaw to herself, as her eyes traveled 
back from a dainty little cabinet writing-desk that was 
fit for nothing but a woman^s pretty papeterie and value- 
less little notes, to the handsome form and face of the 
young man, who was listening with grave respect to the 
bishop’s description of the inner workings at Temple 
Block, which is the sacred square of the Latter-day 
Saints. 

With womankind’s ineradicable passion for helping 
on all affairs of the heart, she began running over in 
her mind the eligibility of the various unsealed girls 
within her list of acquaintances. It was a duty she 
owed, not only to this wanderer from the right way, 
but to the females of her own circle, who, unsealed, 
could never hope to attain in this world or in the 
world to come, any position above that of a menial. 
Beginning very close at home, she was inclined to 
think that in classes three and five, of the bishop’s 
own flock, the sweetest and brightest girls of her 
acquaintance were to be found. She would talk to the 
bishop about it when they went home. He might have 
some preferences of his own in favor of class number 
two, for she was rather inclined to think that of all 
his daughters, Bishop Shaw was a little fonder of 
Eugenia in that class than of any of the others. Her 
own offspring, all boys, enabled Mrs. Laetitia to take 


MR, QUIN BY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 65 

a widely impartial view of this matter in her thoughts. 
The discovery of a sewing-machine, whose fancy iron- 
pedals just peeped from under the fringe of an 
embroidered felt cover, settled her mind conclusively 
as to Mr. Quinby’s intentions. 

What a pleasant voice he has ! she brought her mind 
back from the consideration of classes three and five 
to hear Mr. Quinby say, in a voice of amiable conces- 
sion, apropos of what, she hadn’t any idea : 

“ The argument is on your side there, sir. There is 
no denying that if the economy and probity that 
characterize the administration of your public offices 
here were infused into similar institutions at home, we 
would be the better for it.” 

Bishop Shaw was a singularly upright and fearless 
man. He was paying no purposeless call thi^ evening. 
He considered that he had a duty to perform toward 
this young man who had just become a householder in 
the neighborhood, and it was with a view to performing 
that duty as successfully as possible that he had 
selected the first Mrs. Shaw as his co-adjutor. 

This Mrs. Shaw was regarded by the Saints at large 
as an embodied negation of all the slanders that had 
been heaped upon their peculiar tenets. Her unvary- 
ing serenity, her placid cheerfulness, her active efforts 
for the extension and strengthening of an institution 
which had shaped her own life and satisfied her own 
soul, was the best possible refutation of all calumnies, 


66 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


And she was always eager to throw the weight of her 
experience and conviction into the scales against 
unbelief. 

The bishop’s eye had been upon Mr. Quinby ever 
since his arrival in Salt Lake City, but he was too 
adroit a man to jeopardize his chances of success in 
any undertaking by bungling hastiness. The two 
men had been thrown intimately together in business 
circles, which had afforded the older man a golden 
opportunity to study the younger one. 

He received Mr. Quinby’s indorsement of the city 
government in placid silence. Presently he said, 
fastening his keen eyes on his host’s face : 

“ I am glad to hear ydu indorse us from a business- 
man’s standpoint, friend Quinby. We think we’ve got 
the best of the outside world on the highest moral 
grounds also, and I hope, indeed, I may say I infer 
from what I see,” — embracing the apartment with ex- 
panded arms — “ that you are imbibing juster views of 
man’s duty, as a social and religious being, than you 
probably brought with you.” 

“ Beg pardon ! ” says Mr. Quinby with a mystified 
look. 

“ I mean this home,” the bishop explains, spreading 
his hands expansively once more, then folding them 
with interlocked fingers over his rotund form. 

“Yes?” still questioningly. 

“ Of course, it means that you are preparing to go 


MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 67 

through the Endowment House ! To be sealed, 
that is.” 

Mr. Quinby’s mustache twitched convulsively, and 
nothing but a providential sneeze saved him from de- 
tection. What a mercy Anna wasn’t there ! he 
thought. 

“ It’s really all very pretty and snug, and evidently 
arranged with a view to a woman’s comfort,” says 
Mrs. Shaw in her soft, purring way, looking at John 
so coaxingly that he had to supplement his sneeze 
with a prolonged application of his pocket-handker- 
chief. 

“ I hope my wife will like it all,” he said, glancing 
away from them to the sewing-machine for strength. 
“ I was married some two years and better ago, and 
am just to-night in receipt of a telegram from my 
brother, telling me he left Elizabeth at eight-thirty 
with my wife and baby. I have never seen my boy,” 
he adds, more particularly to Mrs. Shaw, as an item 
of special interest to her woman’s ears. 

“You must be very anxious,” she says, but not with 
that vivid interest that John thought the mention of 
his boy ought to excite. There was an absent look in 
her eyes he had not noticed before. “ Elizabeth, did 
you say, your people were coming from ?” 

“ Yes. It was our old home.” 

“ And mine too. I lived there when I was a girl. 
Oh, so many years ago ! I would like to ask you ” 


68 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


But Bishop Shaw interrupts her in a somewhat argu- 
mentative voice : 

“ This is a pretty good-sized house, I believe, friend 
Quinby.” 

“ Yes. A trifle larger than we will need, but unless 
one builds one can not have things just to suit. I espe- 
cially decided on this house, because of the fine 
prospect from the windows in the rear.” 

“Always best to have plenty of room. Women like 
plenty of space to exert their energies in. It keeps 
them out of pecks of trouble. My wife Laetitia there 
now can tell you how we began housekeeping in our 
big house just across the street from the Lion House, 
rattling around like two dies in a dice box, but how 
we gradually grew to the house until it was a pretty 
snug fit. My wife Laetitia there, now, is your next- 
door neighbor. All of her boys are big grown fellows 
that will soon be making homes for themselves. Laetitia 
has moved out of our large house ; it’s a little too noisy 
for her.” 

He paused for Mrs. Shaw to complete the story of 
their early domestic arrangements. She turned her 
serene eyes from her husband’s face to Mr. Quinby’s 
deeply interested one. 

“Yes,” she said, smiling at him and absently folding 
the Woman’s Exponent into yet smaller compass. 
“ I’m not quite sure that Harriet and I could have kept 
house so comfortably if we had not been divided into 


MR. QUINBY RECEIVES VISITORS AND ADVICE. 69 

Upper and lower stories. I took the first floor and she 
the second. I believe this house has two stories ?” 

“ Yes, madam.” 

That was all Mr. Quinby dared trust himself to by 
way of response. There were but two ways for him, as 
a good Gentile husband, to treat these scarcely veiled 
suggestions. One was to laugh at it all as a huge joke ; 
the other, to resent it indignantly for Anna’s sake ; 
for really, in analyzing his sensations, he could not con- 
scientiously find the due amount of horror at the 
picture of the actual Mrs. Quinby keeping house down 
stairs and an imaginary Mrs. Quinby holding undis- 
puted sway over his second story, if not over his pre- 
occupied heart. 

But situated as he was, he dared neither laugh nor 
frown. How could he laugh or frown either in the 
faces of these two people who accepted the religious 
tenets of the New Gospel as a direct revelation of God’s 
will, which to accept and to follow was to entitle them 
to the reward promised the pure in heart ? How could 
he either laugh or frown into the face of this serene 
browed old lady into whose minutest act he did not 
doubt there entered more of conscientious performance 
than had ever informed his loftiest act ? How could he 
either laugh or frown in the face of adherents to a 
gospel which claimed that “ if there is any thing 
virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we 
seek after those things ” ? Was he his brother’s keeper 


70 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


that he should decide for him what was lovely or of 
good report or praiseworthy ? Besides, he dared neither 
laugh nor frown at Benjamin G. Shaw, as he knew the 
bishop best in commercial circles. No, there- was 
nothing for it but to grant them grave audience ; and 
when, perhaps fully an hour later, he stood for a second 
on his front stoop and watched the slowly vanishing 
forms of Bishop Shaw and his wife Laetitia, as they 
walked toward their own home, he was conscious that 
he had been the object of an experiment. 

And Mrs. Shaw, as soon as they were well out of 
hearing of the young man, asked, in a voice of deepest 
interest, “Well, husband, what do you think of the 
soil ? ” And the bishop answered, sententiously : “The 
seed has been sown in good soil. I have planted, you 
may water and may God give the increase.” 


CHAPTER VII. 


DISCIPLINE AND DEFEAT. 

A FEW more fluttering yellow leaves from the tele- 
graph office reporting progress, and then, toward 
the close of a bright day made very long, however, by 
ardent expectation, Mr. Quinby had the pleasure of 
folding his wife and boy in one expansive embrace. 

“You are looking blooming, but I don’t like Anna’s 
appearance at all,” he said to Anthony, after his first 
impressions of his son had been put upon record and 
Anna’s delight over every thing in the house had been 
breathlessly expressed, and he and Tony were facing 
each other over their cigars, just as in the old Elizabeth 
days. 

At the moment of his making that remark, however, 
Mrs. Quinby had gone to assure herself for the third or 
fourth time that the baby could not by any feat of 
agility tumble out of the new crib that had received 
him hospitably very soon after his arrival from the depot 
of the Utah Central Railroad. 

“ The boy is something of an absorbent, you know, 
and I am afraid Anna is one of those women who think 


72 


THE BAR-SINJSTEk. 


that nothing short of immolation of self will fill the re- 
quirements of motherhood. By the way, one of many 
last things Mrs. Abbott said to me was — ‘Tell John he 
must take a very peremptor}^ stand with Anna at 
night. She gets no rest and is ruining the child.’ I’ve 
given you her message verbatim.” 

“ I shall certainly take matters in hand,” says Mr. 
Quinby, who feels personally aggrieved at having his 
wife come to him thin and wan, with the beauty that 
he especially married her for evidently on the wane. 

“ Who or what is that you are going to take in hand 
so promptly?” she asks, coming back just then and 
drawing her chair very close to John’s. Close enough 
for her to lay her pretty hand upon his knee in the 
olden fashion, sure that it will be clasped soon and 
retained affectionately. It is very sweet to feel John 
so close to her once more. She wonders how she 
existed without him all these months. And how well 
and handsome he is looking ! 

“You, primarily, and the boy, secondarily. I have no 
notion of sitting opposite a hollow-eyed wife every 
morning at breakfast. See how the rings jingle on your 
fingers! We must do better than this. How old is 
our son ? Three months, or four, is it ? ” 

“ Three months and four days,” Mrs. Quinby 
answered with a woman’s conscientiousness touching 
things of little import. 

“ My dear, if I were in your place I should not permit 


DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 


73 


myself to be made such a slave of to that child. He is 
quite old enough now for you to begin disciplining him. 
Fixed hours for nourishment and a little determination 
on your part are all that is necessary to reduce order 
out of chaos, ril undertake him. It is nothing more 
than right that- the pains and penalties attaching to 
such a valuable possession as a son should be shared as 
evenly as possible between us.” 

“ Good ! ” says Anthony. “ I am ready to indorse 
you as a model father on the strength of such noble 
utterances.” 

But Anna only smiled into the face of the would-be 
reformer. It was simply delicious to have John so con- 
cerned about her and wanting to help, her this way ! 
He wasn’t weaned away from her one bit ! But the 
idea of determination in connection with baby was too 
funny! She was altogether too happy, however, to 
feel like arguing the point. She must forewarn him a 
little though. 

“ It might mortify your vanity and lessen your pride 
of paternity, John dear, to discover, if you really do 
undertake him, as you express it, to find out how 
curiously your boasted strength and the baby’s acknowl- 
edged weakness may become transposed. The battle 
is not always to the strong, dear.” 

But Mr. Quinby was wise in his own conceit. He 
not able to cope with that small, soft, helpless thing 
up stairs ! The idea was too absurd ! 


74 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ Nothing can be simpler. There’s the baby ; there’s 
the bottle ; there’s the clock ! Three hours’ interval 
must be observed. It will be a little troublesome for 
the first night or two, but after that peace will reign, 
and you will reap the benefit of it as well as the child,” 
he says, evidently enjoying this first opportunity to 
exercise his paternal authority. “ I shall take com- 
mand to-night.” 

“ If I were an autocrat,” says Anthony, laughing at 
the consternation in Anna’s face, “ I would decree that 
whenever a man recklessly remarked to his wife, ‘ If I 
were in your place, I would do this, that or t’other,’ 
he should, by the majestic arm of the law, be put into 
her place and made to silit his actions to his words, or, 
in case of failure, be made, figuratively speaking, to 
eat his own boastful utterances. Then we would find 
out where the equanimity comes in and where the 
power to suffer and be strong goes out. Nannie, if you 
are the wise woman I take you to be, you will enjoy a 
good night’s sleep and let your autocrat wrestle with 
that small bundle of activity upstairs. I hope you will 
give me the benefit of your experience in the morning, 
John. I expect to find you a sadder and a wiser man 
at the breakfast table. Good-night.” 

‘‘We are all tired enough for one day,” says Mr. 
Quinby, rising as Anthony disappears, and proceeding 
to turn off the gas in the parlor and the library, that 
has been lighted to the point of an illumination in 


DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 


IS 


this night of jubilee. Anna watches him from the soft 
nest of her easy chair with eyes aglow with happi- 
ness. 

“Oh ! John, it isn’t a bit like Utah,” she says, wind- 
ing both hands about his arm as they mount the stairs 
together. 

“ What isn’t a bit like Utah ? ” he asks, pinching the 
ear that nestles close to his shoulder. 

“Oh ! every thing ! This pretty house and you and 
Tony and I all together again with nobody else.” 

“ Excepting the boy and his nurse. By the way, 
that girl Barbara is too stunningly handsome to be a 
good servant.” 

“ And no hateful hotel with horrid Mormon wretches 
in it thinking themselves as good as any body and star- 
ing at you and wondering if you are a man’s real wife 
or his — his — ” says Anna, pursuing her own line of 
thought rather incoherently. “You know, John, there 
just can’t be but one genuine wife in the whole lot.” 

“ I take it your ideas are pretty crude yet, dear. I 
don’t think people waste as much time wondering over 
every new face as you imagine. I suppose you feel 
thankful not to find any more Mrs. Quinbys here in 
advance of you. Is that why it isn’t a bit like 
Utah?” 

It was a clumsy jest, and he could feel her wince 
under it. He had been so elated over the result of his 
strategic move in bringing her immediately into the 


76 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


sacred home atmosphere, that he felt warranted in in- 
dulging in a little jocularity. What an immensely 
thin-skinned creature your good woman is at best, he 
thought, hastening to do away with his clumsiness. 

“ To-morrow morning I want you to see the sunrise 
from the bay window in your room, and then I think 
you will really fall in love with your new home. I 
selected your sleeping-room with a special view to that 
outlook.” 

The shaded kerosene lamp on the hearth, which 
seemed to appeal more strongly to the olfactories than 
to any other sense, supporting its small sauce-pan of 
simmering milk, the mysteriously stoppered bottle in 
its close neighborhood, together with the softly undulat- 
ing heap under the zephyr-wool cover of the crib that 
was drawn close to the bed-side, combined to give Mr. 
Quinby his first realizing sense of being a family man, 
and infused the last touch of peremptoriness into the 
tones in which he repeated as he adjusted the pillow to 
the nape of his neck, 

“ Remember, Anna, twelve o’clock is the hour im- 
mutably fixed for refreshments, which I will adminis- 
ter. You must rest, and all I ask is non-interference 
on your part,” and with the resolution of all the Medes 
and Persians condensed into the determination to show 
his wife what a simple operation disciplining a baby 
might be made, Mr. Quinby settled himself to sleep 
the intermediate hours away. 


DISCIPLINE AND DEED A T. 


77 


About eleven o'clock indications of activity were 
noticeable in the enemy’s camp. A pink fist struck 
out energetically but rather aimlessly at space, followed 
at a short interval by one pink foot, which was quickly 
reinforced by its fellow. A soft, low-murmured pre- 
lude, known in nursery parlance as a “fret,” broke 
upon the hush of night. A second pink fist clutched 
wildly in the direction where the peace-offering was 
habitually and promptly offered by Mrs. Quinby at this 
stage of the proceedings. A moment of still surprise ! 
It was evident the baby was reasoning from cause to 
effect. He would not be too hard on the mother whose 
shortcomings were so few. Perhaps the lamp had 
gone out and the milk was cold. It was sure 
to come. She had never failed him yet ! Indigna- 
tion, surprise, dismay and desolation are distinctly 
and emphatically voiced in a crescendo and acceler- 
ando passage skillfully executed the next moment by 
Mr. Abbott Quinby under conviction of treachery some- 
where. Mr. Quinby senior cautiously raises himself 
on one elbow to observe this phenomenal (to him) pro- 
ceeding, and is thankful that poor Anna has not been 
disturbed by the shrill outcry. He supposes that is 
the baby’s way of protesting, and of course he will go 
to sleep again now, having protested. Mrs. Quinby’s 
tender heart is lacerated, but she too stoops to conquer 
occasionally, and as John can only be taught by ex- 
perience, she will not interfere until he voluntarily re- 


78 


THE BAR-SJNJSTER. 


turns the usurped scepter into her maternal hands. She 
buries her head deeper into the pillows to deaden the 
sound of the coming storm, for no one knows better 
than she that the boy will not go to sleep after that 
first protest. The springs of the bed creak heavily as 
Mr. Quinby squirms restlessly in a very un-Mede and 
un-Persian-like disquiet, while his son makes night vocal 
and murders sleep. Anna heroically refrains from 
quoting, “ a little determination is all that is necessary 
to reduce order out of chaos.’' She feels placidly sure 
that before thirty more minutes have rolled over her 
husband’s inexperienced head he will have been 
brought to a knowledge of the fact that determination 
is not peculiarly a characteristic of the adult male of 
his species. Finding that masterly inactivity does not 
conquer a peace as promptly as, in his ignorance he 
had calculated upon, Mr. Quinby has recourse to ter- 
rorizing. One sonorous, baby-blood-curdling “ Hush, 
sir ! ” mingles with the fray, and as it produces the 
temporary quietude of abject fear, the semblance of 
peace is restored and Mr. Quinby turns over on his 
side in premature triumph, conscious of a growing 
conviction that there never was a more tempestuous 
infant than his son, nor a stronger smelling lamp than 
the one then filling the atmosphere of his chamber, nor 
a slower moving clock than the one that was deliber- 
ately discounting the moments from the bank of time 
into the exchequer of eternity while he was in sore 


DISCIPLINE AND DEED A T. 


79 


travail of spirit. Also, he began to entertain a much 
higher opinion of his wife’s administrative ability. By 
half-past eleven o’clock the slumber that had been the 
result of terror and not of satiety, was broken into flin- 
ders by the tempestuous wail the baby sent out in fresh 
assertion of his rights, alongside of which the shriek of 
the American eagle was as the cooing of a dove. The 
question of capitulation began to assume grave pro- 
portions — not on the part of the infantry. But could 
a Mede and Persian, as exemplified in Mr. Quinby’s 
resolute soul, surrender unconditionally to a babe and a 
suckling? Manhood, discipline and dignity forbade it. 
That child must learn that there were opposing wills in 
the world. He fell back on strategy. A feeble species 
of parley was held with the enemy! False promises 
were extended ; flattering endearments were lavished ; 
coaxing insinuations flowed freely. But the enemy 
scorned a truce. The milk bottle formed the base of 
his exactions, and he was not to be driven therefrom. 
The bewildered reformer stood irresolute over the crib, 
looking down in perplexed astonishment at this tur- 
bulent agglomeration of tiny limbs, vigorous lungs, 
soft helplessness and unconquerable will. He wished 
that Anna would wake up just long enough to hold a 
council of war with him, or to suggest terms of capitu- 
lation. But while the baby rent the peace of night in 
twain his mother snored in a gentle, lady-like fashion 
that filled Mr. Quinby with amazement. Could hetwtr 


8o 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


become SO accustomed to this uproar? No signs of 
weakening or of surrender were observable on the 
baby’s part as the moments sped on. Mr. Quinby felt 
them numerously on his own. However, according to 
discipline and the sanitarians, supported by all the 
best doctors and nurses in the land, three hours should 
intervene between “ drinks.” That unsympathetic 
clock pointed to quarter of twelve. Fifteen more min- 
utes of this pandemonium. Could mortal flesh endure 
fifteen more seconds of it ? Threadbare indeed ! 
Small wonder Anna looked like a shadow of herself. 
It was a wonder she had a pound of flesh on her bones. 
Soon Mrs. Quinby hears a splashing as of milk being 
recklessly dashed from the nursery mug into the 
bottle, followed by a gurgling sound as of refreshment 
rather urgently proffered. 

“Don’t choke him, John, dear,” she says, in an in- 
tensely wide-awake voice. 

“ Are you awake ? ” 

Mrs. Quinby laughed. The question was so super- 
fluous. 

“ Oh, well ! I say, Anna, what do you do when he 
won’t take it ? ” 

“ I never knew such a thing to happen in all my 
life ! ” Mrs. Quinby was standing over the crib by the 
time her answer had reached it, and she hovered over 
the small but exhausted conqueror like a dove with 
outstretched wings. 


DISCIPLINE AND DEFEA T. 8i 

Mr. Quinby sighed as if the weight of a world had 
suddenly been lifted from his shoulders, and was won- 
dering if he would be derelict to his duties as a family 
man if he should go to sleep very immediately. He 
felt extremely sandy about the eyes. But Anna 
promptly settled his doubts for him. 

“John! he’s sick ! Oh, he’s terribly sick! Look, it 
must be scarlet fever. See those monstrous red 
blotches ! Who knows what horrible diseases we 
traveled with. Oh, John! do get a doctor ! Oh ! if 
mother was only here. I knew every thing would go 
wrong as soon as I brought baby away from her. Old 
ladies know every thing, and doctors don’t know any 
thing,” said Mrs. Quinby, sweepingly, as she 'gathers 
the storm-tossed baby into her lap and falls to weep- 
ing over it profusely, “ and to think how we’ve been 
torturing him to-night, John.” 

“ Don’t, Anna ! Don’t talk that way,” says Mr. 
Quinby, with the remorse of a convicted criminal in his 
voice. “ You know babies have to have a variety of 
things, and no doubt this is just one of them.” He 
administers this vague comfort while getting into his 
clothes with tremulous haste. “We’ll have an old 
lady first, and then all the doctors in town if need be. 
Perhaps, after all, it’s only bed-bugs,” he says, slapping 
his hat on his head while he stoops to take a cursory 
glimpse of the crimson blotches that have so alarmed 
his wife. 


82 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“Oh! John, please don’t be so stupid, if you are a 
man. I tell you something dreadful is the matter with 
the baby.” 

And it is with these last words of his wife’s on his 
lips that Mr. Quinby stands apologetically in Mrs. 
Laetitia Shaw’s presence a few minutes later on beg- 
ging her pardon for his midnight invasion. “ But,” he 
added, in that winning way which always made it such 
a pleasure for people to accommodate him, “ I thought 
you could do more toward relieving the anxiety of a 
young mother than a score of doctors, and if I can 
leave you with Mrs. Quinby while I hunt up a doctor, 
I shall be so very glad.” 

“We had better see if a doctor is needed, first,” 
says the bishop’s wife, always her most alert self when 
somebody is to be helped out of trouble of some sort ; 
“ if you’ll just wait three minutes I will be ready to go 
with you.” 

The three minutes seem very long to John, standing 
there in the dimly lighted hall imagining all sorts of 
horrible possibilities in the room at his house ; but 
when the bishop’s wife comes back to him, wrapping 
a great woolen shawl about the pretty white curls that 
look as if they never knew disorder, and extends a lot 
of bottles for him to carry, his spirits go up with sur- 
prising alacrity, and he is quite sure he did the best 
thing to be done by calling in Mrs. Shaw. 

“ I am thinking,” she says, panting a little, but keep- 


DISCIPLINE AND DEED A T. 83 

ing step with his long, nervous stride, “ from your de- 
scription, that it’s hives and nothing worse.” 

“ Hives ” was mystifyingly suggestive of bees, but as 
Mr. Quinby was smarting under a sense of general de- 
feat just then, he did not care to invite fresh mortifica- 
tion by acknowledging to ignorance of something that 
perhaps he ought to have known, so he just muttered : 
“Let us hope so,” and hurried the little old lady 
through the deserted street with reckless speed. 

‘Anna, I’ve brought a friend who will prove quite 
as knowing as Grandma Abbott, I’m sure,” he says, 
presenting Mrs. Shaw suddenly before his wife where 
she sat moaning and rocking in a perfect frenzy of 
helpless misery. 

One look up into the sweet, motherly face that was 
brought close enough for Mrs. Shaw to kiss her on the 
forehead, was sufficient to inspire Anna with confi- 
dence and a sense of relief. The women smiled into 
each other’s eyes, as Anna held out her precious bur- 
den and motioned Mrs. Shaw to take the low rocker 
she had just risen from. 

“ I’m so much obliged to your husband for think- 
ing of me first,” says the bishop’s wife ; “ I have a 
much better opinion of myself than I have of the 
doctors.” 

And while she began her examination with the air 
of an expert, Anna took in every particular of her deli- 
cate, blue-veined temples and hands, her bright eyes 


84 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


full of benevolence, and the gentle face that seemed 
to radiate intelligence and sweetness. 

“ As I thought,” Mrs. Shaw says, presently, with her 
mouth full of pins that she has garnered from the baby, 
“ it’s nothing in the world but hives.” 

“ Hives! And what on earth is that, or are those,” 
for the mysterious word has a plural sound, and Anna 
is so far relieved from anxiety that she can afford 
to be grammatical. 

'‘An irruption, dear, that is more annoying than 
alarming. Babies are very liable to it, especially in 
change of atmosphere. We’ll soon have him comfort- 
able. I’m so glad you weren’t foolish enough to run 
after a doctor the first thing.” She nodded approval up 
at John, while she gently soothed the angry blotches 
with a lotion from one of the bottles she had brought, 
and while she lulled their baby to sleep, Mr. Quinby 
and his wife made tremendous strides toward adoring 
her. 

“It is almost as good as having mother near me,” 
says Anna, giving the old lady’s hand a little supple- 
mentary squeeze, after they have stood together by 
the crib, to make sure of the prospect for peace at last, 
and Mrs. Shaw is ready to be taken home again. 

“ I hope you will always think so, dear, and I am 
very much obliged to baby for bringing us together so 
promptly. We can never feel like strangers after to- 
night.” 


DISCIPLINE AND DEED A T, 85 

No, indeed,” said Anna, fervently, following them 
to the top of the stairs and warning her not to stumble 
over the mat at the bottom. 

“John,” Mrs. Quinby rouses herself to ask as her 
husband once more settles himself among the pillows 
with a tired sigh, “ she isn’t, she can’t be, not that 
dear, lovely-faced old lady with the wise eyes and the 
refined hands, can’t be one of them ! Is she, John?” 

“ One of what ? ” 

“Those horrid Mormons.’’ 

“ She is the wife of a very prominent Mormon, a 
particular friend of mine. Do go to sleep, Anna.” 

“ The wife ! That sounds all right. I am so glad.” 

“So am I,” Mr. Quinby answers with drowsy irrele- 
vance, in allusion, perhaps, to the blessed quietude of 
the room, and lapses into slumber, unconscious that by 
the use of a definite for an indefinite article he has in- 
volved his wife in a mesh of error that is likely to prove 
misleading. 

And the bishop’s wife, replacing the vials of medi- 
cine she had found no use for at the Quinby’s in the 
medicine chest that ornamented her bedroom mantle- 
shelf, was conscious of a mild sort of dissatisfaction 
that she didn’t have the bishop on hand to discuss with 
him this little ripple of an event. But it was the 
bishop’s week with class number three, and Mrs. Lae- 
titia Shaw was well disciplined in patient endurance. 


CHAPTER VIII. 


AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 

WONDER why Anna Quinby don’t write?” Miss 
J_ Ambrose said one morning, coming into the 
dining-room about breakfast time and finding her father 
reading the only letter that had been left by the carrier. 

“ Good-morning, pet. I don’t know. Too much 
taken up with John yet awhile and getting her bear- 
ings among the Saints. Here’s something curious.” 

Dr. Ambrose answers all in one breath, holding out 
in his left hand an open letter which he did not offer 
to relinquish, however, while with his right he screwed 
his black silk skull cap around until the tassel of it 
rested confidingly over one temple. A sure sign of 
perturbation with the doctor. 

Efifie gravely surveyed the fluttering piece of paper, 
which contained only two or three lines of writing. 

Curious ? It looks like very ordinary paper and 
common ink with some unusually neat writing on it.” 

It is good writing,” says the doctor, looking at the 
letter again over his spectacles ; “ but the contents ! 
That’s the curious part of it. It’s from Ferd Cosgrove’s 
son. His name, the son’s I mean, is,” referring to the 


AN" I M PORTA TION FROM THE SOUTH. S; 

letter again, “ Ferd, too, by the way. I see he signs it 
Ferd, Jun.” 

“ An abbreviation of Ferdinand, I suppose,” says 
Miss Ambrose in a tone that condemns abbreviations 
in general. They smacked of slovenliness in nomen- 
clature, and the doctors daughter was a foe to slovenli- 
ness in any thing. 

“Yes, yes, to be sure. But see here, Effie, the boy 
will be here by the 11.30 train, and I, oh ! by George, 
it is altogether very remarkable.” The doctor’s cap 
pirouetted until the tassel reached the other temple, 
and he stared at his daughter in that helplessly appeal- 
ing fashion in which the strongest men indulge in 
emergencies where quick-wittedness is demanded to 
rescue slow judgment from a snarl. 

“ Suppose you read your letter aloud, father, or let 
me read it, and then I can have a clearer understand- 
ing of what seems to be worrying you considerably.” 

“Well, I don’t know that you will,” says the doctor, 
moving away toward the breakfast table, where the 
beefsteak has just been located in front of his plate ; 
“ there's precious little in this letter. It’s from Ferd 
Cosgrove’s son. You know he and I, Ferd senior, I 
mean, went to college together. He’s a Mississippi 
boy, from somewhere in Sunflower County, and can’t 
be more than twenty-six or seven at furthest. I’ve 
never seen him since we parted at Cambridge — old 
Ferd I mean — excepting for an hour or two, when we 


88 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


happened to cross each other at Washington City, he 
going north and I south ; it was when I took your 
poor dear mother to Florida for her health ; and here 
he turns up in the most sudden and unexplained man- 
ner — young Ferd I mean — saying” (the doctor laid 
down the carving knife which he had been clashing 
fiercely across the sharpener during this preliminary 
explanation and took up the disturbing letter once 
more) ‘ My dear sir, — I reached New York last night, 
and hope to be with you by noon to-morrow at furthest. 
Will start for Elizabeth by the 1 1.30 train. My father’s 
explanation of his wishes and my intentions were so 
explicit that nothing remains to be said until we meet 
in person.’” 

“ And what is his father’s explanation ? ” 

“Hanged if I know! This is the first atom of 
information I’ve had concerning a Cosgrove since Ferd 
and I, old Ferd of course I mean, met as I told you at 
Washington. ^ Then our talk was very hurried and 
discursive. I do remember his blowing extensively 
about the talents of his only son, and he said he 
wanted to make a doctor of him when he was old 
enough, and I remember I said, ‘ Well, send him on to 
me when you want him licked into shape ; ’ but that 
was ten years ago, and all in fun at that.” 

“ Well, the time has come for licking into shape, as 
you call it, and Mr. Cosgrove has sent his talented son 
on to you. Of course he wrote.” 


AJV I M PORTA TION FROM THE SOUTH. 89 

So his boy says ! ” 

“And of course you got the letter, father! I’ll ven- 
ture any thing it is in your pocket at this moment, 
alongside of no one knows how many others. Oh ! 
papa ! ’’ 

This in amazement at the rapidly increasing pile of 
papers, in a more or less crumpled condition, which 
Dr. Ambrose is piling up on both sides of his plate as 
fast as he can empty his pockets of the accumu- 
lation of months. She got up and brought his coffee 
to him with a view of helping in the search. 

“ Miss Effie Ambrose ! ’’ she read aloud, in tones of 
mingled reproach and triumph, singling a letter from 
the pile on the right of the plate while the doctor is 
anxiously scanning those on the other side, “and,” with 
another catlike pounce, “Dr. John Ambrose! Here it 
is, you careless, careless papa. Post-marked,” turning 
it round and round, “ the dear only knows what, beside 
‘ Miss.,’ that’s plain enough. And it’s only fifteen days 
old. Father, this is shocking.” 

“ It is, beyond question,” says the doctor, disarming 
reproach by ready concession, while he stuffs the sur- 
plus papers back again into his roomy pockets. “ Bless 
me if I can tell how such a thing could have happened. 
I am very particular about letters as a general thing. 
In fact I don’t know how I came by them at all. Why 
weren’t they — yes, I do too, it all comes back to me. 
It was just as I was going out at the gate in a big rain, 
7 


go THE BAR-SINISTER. 

and I met the carrier and took them to save him a few 
steps to the door. I was on my way to see Watson's 
baby, I remember. It died, you know, poor little chap, 
in convulsions. I suppose I never thought of ’em 
from that moment to this. I’m sure I’m very sorry, 
darling, for keeping you out of yours so long.” 

“ It don’t make the least difference,” says Miss 
Ambrose, whose interest has fallen to zero on discover- 
ing the Boston post-mark on her own letter. A letter 
from Utah must of necessity be very unlike a letter 
from any other place in the world. She was surprised 
at the vitality of her own curiosity in this direction. 
But she had always been fond of Anna, in the com- 
monplace Elizabeth days, and now, Anna with the 
possibilities of a martyr’s crown dimly foreshadowed 
was an object of intensified devotion to this girl, who, 
quite unknown to herself, was suffering from a sort of 
heart hunger that proclaimed her altogether liable to 
tremendous vicissitudes sooner or later. She poured 
her own coffee out and sipped it silently while Doctor 
Ambrose read the long letter from Mr. Cosgrove 
senior, which explained the short one of Mr. Cosgrove 
junior. 

“Well! no great harm done after all,” he says 
finally, looking relieved, as he puts the letter back in 
his pocket and swallows his cold coffee in several 
audible gulps. “ Ferd says,” tapping the pocket that 
has ingulfed the letter, “that it would soon be fol- 


AJV IMPORT A TION FROM THE SOUTH*. 91 

lowed by his son, who has resolved, with his entire 
approbation, to cut loose from the plantation and fit 
himself for a professional career. He wants his son to 
study medicine under me. He says, he is but poorly 
equipped to battle with the world and hopes I will keep 
him as near me as possible. That he will need to 
exercise the most rigid economy and is prepared to 
take my advice in any matter concerning his way of 
living. You know, those people are all desperately 
poor since the war, daughter. He comes, young Ferd 
I mean, from a plantation where he has spent his entire 
life.” 

“ Of course he is peculiar,” says Miss Ambrose, pre- 
pared for any amount of eccentricity on the part of a 
young man who has spent his entire life on a plantation 
in that dark and godless region of the country known 
as the South. 

“Why so?” asks Dr. Ambrose, who is absolutely 
without sectional prejudices. 

“ He is from Mississippi, isn’t he ? ” 

“Yes.” 

“ And you say his entire life has been spent on a 
plantation ? ” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Those people lead very queer lives at best, don’t 
they, father? ” 

“How?” 

“ Oh ! I don’t know just exactly, but I remember 


92 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Aunt Priscilla had a great horror of all of them. IVe 
heard her tell so often of a trip she made down the 
Mississippi River when she and mamma were little girls. 
It must have been just terrible, you know. And I’m 
quite sure the papers are always teeming with some- 
thing awful that has happened down there where the 
men shoot and chew and ku-klux and are just horrid 
anyhow.” Miss Ambrose shuddered as the vision arose 
before her, of being brought into close personal contact 
with the exponent of all these local vices. 

“ Who has crammed you with such confounded non- 
sense, child ? ” Dr. Ambrose looks his very angriest as 
he asks this. 

I am sure I’ve gotten hold of a general impression 
of that sort somehow or other.” 

‘ General impressions ’ which are ' gotten hold of 
somehow ’ are apt to prove very accurate, no doubt,” 
says the doctor, waxing sarcastic in his wrath, “ but it 
is not very difficult to trace your ignorant prejudices to 
their source. Your Aunt Priscilla was one of the 
earliest women movers in the abolition excitement. 
Not that I’m charging that against her. But I’ll be 
hanged if the more earnest a genuinely good woman 
gets in one direction, the more bitterly antagonistic she 
doesn’t get in another. And the abolitionist women, 
saintly fanatics, as they were, were incapable of taking 
very broad views of any subject, and nursed their sym- 
pathies for the slaves with such one-sided vigor, that 


AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 9 ^ 

they came to regard it as a religious duty to malign and 
blacken the reputation of the masters until the devil 
himself would hesitate about offering them hospitality. 
But you and I, my pet, are not going to open that old 
quarrel. The slaves are free, thank God, but the men 
who fought for what they thought was right have 
bitten the dust in humiliation. Far be it from us to 
plant one more thorn in the crown they’ve' worn so 
long. This young fellow comes to us almost as an 
exile. We’ll just remember, won’t we, daughter, that 
he is a stranger in a strange land, and forget every thing 
else? I’m going to drive out to Bridge’s this morning. 
His wife’s down again. I’ll manage to get back in 
time to bring Cosgrove up from the depot with me.” 

“ How will you know this young man from any body 
else ? ” Effie asks practically, when her father comes 
back into the dining-room after exchanging his slippers 
and skull-cap for his shoes and tall, stiff hat in which he 
did professional penance for his slippered ease. “He 
has your address. You had best let him find his own 
way up here.” 

“ That would look sorter chilling, you know. I’ll trust 
my intuitions for picking a Southern boy out of a New 
York crowd. It’s as easy as picking a black bean out 
of a pan full of white ones. Then he’s Ferd’s son, 
and there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make him wel- 
come. Ferd, old Ferd I mean, was a jolly good dog, 
if he did go astray on the secession question. We 


94 


THE BAR-S/NISTER. 


chummed it for four years at college in the same room. 
I guess this boy has had something of a hard tussle to 
get any education.” 

“ I doubt if he has any,” not heartlessly, simply true 
to her convictions that an altogether abnormal moral 
and mental condition of affairs held down South. She 
kissed her father in a perfunctory fashion, and closing 
the front door on his retreating form, went to the 
library that constituted the right wing of the old house, 
where she was soon absorbed in what she called her 
morning duties. 

These consisted in reading a chapter in the Old and 
New Testament according to the table of lessons for the 
month as laid down in the book of common prayer, 
after which so many pages of Carlyle’s Frederick the 
Great, and, in lighter vein, a few problems in trigonom- 
etry were studied out. Her Aunt Priscilla had always 
contended for mathematics as the best discipline for 
the mind that one could possibly be under, and poor 
Efihe, vaguely conscious of a sense of insufficiency in 
her life as it was, sought, in more perfect discipline of 
her faculties, surcease from the spirit of restlessness 
that haunted her through all the lonely hours that her 
father’s absence entailed upon her. 

“ I am no better than an aimless child,” she sighed in 
bitterness of spirit this morning, turning unrefreshed 
from the self-imposed tasks that had filled the morning 
hours for her, if they had not supplied any higher inner 


AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH. 95 

need. “ Surely I must be a poor bit of mechanism. 
The life that satisfied every need of dear Aunt Pris- 
cilla’s soul leaves me dry and parched with thirst. But 
then, hers was a grand soul, attuned to grand issues. 
She lived for others. She lived to free the enslaved ! 
and she died triumphant ! while I ! ah, me! I cumber 
the earth ! ” , • 

In her enthusiasm over the aunt whose strong per- 
sonality had dominated her own most susceptible years. 
Miss Ambrose never stopped to inquire how infini- 
tesimally small that lady’s influence had been in bring- 
ing about the stupendous fact of emancipation. On the 
contrary, in her fond idolatry she was rather inclined to 
exalt the said Boston spinster into the triumphant god- 
dess of liberty, or the heroic exponent of the idea that 
had carried peace and joy to four million of sable hearts. 
And not seldom, when she closed the books that were, 
after all, such unsatisfying companions for a fresh 
young life, she found herself wondering enviously if her 
opportunity would ever come to her unsought, as it 
had come to her Aunt Priscilla. 

That our golden opportunity often lies so close to 
us that our far-reaching eyes fail to note it, was a 
truism that had not yet presented itself to the doc- 
tor’s daughter. 

The sound of a sudden rainfall that came dashing 
against the window glass in big, noisy drops made her 
look away from the open trigonometry in her lap 


96 tffE BAR^SINISTER, 

toward the street. She wondered if her father had 
gone prepared for this caprice of the elements, and 
wished she had thought to remind him of his water- 
proof. He was so careless about himself, so careful 
for others. There went a foolish man now, holding 
his unsheltered hat well down against the big patter- 
ing drops with one' hand, while the other clasped the 
lapels of his unbuttoned coat over his breast. The 
listless interest inspired by this rain-drenched walker 
received no accession from his sudden stoppage at her 
own gate, which he opened, after a quick, upward 
glance at the door, and cleared the narrow space be- 
tween him and shelter at a half-dozen amazingly long 
strides. 

Long-legged people and short-legged people, people 
of all sorts and conditions, were continually making 
pilgrimages through that gate to her father’s office in 
the wing of the house, so Miss Ambrose was well 
back into her problem when her studious vein was 
once more interrupted by a knock at the door. 

“ Come ! ” she drawled the monosyllable languidly, 
and looked up with a pencil in hand to hear what 
Maurice had to say. 

“ There’s a young man in the doctor’s office that 
give me this card, miss, for your pa,” says Maurice, 
extending his lacquer-ware tray with a visiting-card on 
it, “ and he says he’ll wait till the doctor comes in.” 

“Well, what have I to do with that?” Miss Am- 


AN IMPORTATION FROM THE SOUTH, 


97 


brose asks, not offering to take the card ; “ I suppose 
it’s some patient of my father’s.” 

“ No’m, I don’t think he be,” says Maurice, looking 
down on the bit of paste-board on his tray, as if he 
would like very much to question it ; “ he looks too 
sorter healthy to have any needs for a doctor. He’s a 
stranger to these parts, I take it. He says his train 
was a little ahead of time, or he reckons — that’s the 
word — the doctor would ’a’ been on hand.” 

“ Let me have the card,” says Effie, quickly for her, 
laying her pencil down on the open book. Maurice 
extends his tray with relieved alacrity. Miss Ambrose 
reads on it, penciled in good, clear characters, “ F. 
Cosgrove, Jun.” 

It’s all right, Maurice, my father is expecting this 
gentleman. You can tell him Dr. Ambrose rode to the 
depot to meet him, and ” 

“ That’s the doctor now a-stampin’ the water out of 
his feet,” says Maurice, as a vigorous sound of foot- 
stamping comes to their ears, and Effie goes out to 
meet him with the card in her hand. 

“ You missed your black bean after all,” she says, 
lowering her voice against all possibility of its pene- 
trating to the stranger’s ears. 

“Yes. He didn’t come. There wasn’t but four 
passengers got out at this station. Two old women, 
Henry Colton, and a long-legged, thin-faced chap that 
looked as if he might have been raised on a down- 


98 


THE BAR’SINISTER. 


east farm, where they never ate any thing but pump- 
kins.” 

Effie displayed Mr. Cosgrove’s card and laughed. 
Her father’s acumen in tracing inherited physiognomy 
was evidently at fault. 

“ Where did you get this ? ” 

“ Mr. Cosgrove is in your office,” she said, “ and I 
shouldn’t wonder if the poor young man is sitting there 
in moist misery. The rain was pouring down, and he 
had no umbrella.” 

“ Bless my soul,” says Dr. Ambrose, making shuf- 
fling haste along the passage-way toward his office, 
“ it does look as if I was determined to cold-water that 
young man.” 

“ With the assistance of the elements,” says Effie, 
going with him as far as the foot of the stairs that 
took upward flight n’ear the back door. “ I will see 
you and your friend at luncheon,” she adds, waving 
her hand to her father as he disappeared through a 
side door, and bursts violently in upon Mr. Ferdinand 
Cosgrove, Junior, where he stands coolly drying his 
dampened legs before the doctor’s stove, reading the 
while a book he has taken from the shelves with an 
absorption of interest that has made him forget how 
long he has been kept waiting for the cordial welcome 
his father had guaranteed him before he had left the 
plantation, saying — 

“ Things have changed up North, Ferd, no doubt, 


AN IM PORTA TION FROM THE SOUTH. 


99 


tremendously, since I was a rich young college fellow, 
with the world in a sling ; but there’s one thing up 
there that can’t change, any more than true gold can 
be changed into any baser metal, and that one thing 
is John Ambrose’s heart. God bless him ! ” 


CHAPTER IX. 


SNAP JUDGMENT. 

^ ^ ^T^HIS young fellow comes to us almost as an exile. 

X We’ll just remember, won’t we, daughter, that 
he is a stranger in a strange land and forget every thing 
else?” 

These words of her father haunted Effie long after 
the sound of his creaking shoes (the doctor’s shoes 
were chronically afflicted that way), carrying him over 
the oil-clothed hall in apologetic haste, had died away 
in the distance and been superseded by muffled voices 
in conversation that penetrated at intervals through the 
ceiling and carpet, punctuated occasionally by a rollick- 
ing laugh from the doctor. 

“ They seem to find plenty to say to each other,” she 
says, carefully folding up her sewing, as the clock struck 
one, and taking a brief survey of herself in the looking- 
glass before going down to luncheon. It was a sweet, 
serious face reflected back at her, with a broad, serene 
forehead from which all such frivolities as bangs, curls, 
or even wavelets, were religiously excluded. Smoothly 
parted, on either side her brown hair was severely out- 


SNAP JUDGMENT. 


lor 


lined against the white of temple and brow ; “ of course 
he’s peculiar ; but, as dear good father says, these people 
have suffered terribly for their sins and it is the part of 
charity to judge them leniently and treat them kindly," 
with which mis-quotation, she left her own room fully 
prepared to overwhelm Mr. Cosgrove with the gracious- 
ness of her reception. It was a bit of unconscious diplo- 
macy on the doctor’s part, enlisting her pity for his pro- 
teg^. For Miss Ambrose dearly loved to be magnani- 
mous. This young man had, innocently perhaps, but 
none the less really, partaken of the crime of slave-hold- 
ing, but as he had voluntarily come out from that land 
of moral turpitude, whose dark boundaries she auto- 
cratically traced on Mason and Dixon’s line, he should 
be treated with that gentle consideration due all con- 
fessed prodigals ; of course, there would be a great deal 
to shock one’s finer sensibilities in associating with a 
young man whose best must be very poor indeed, but 
then, she hoped Aunt Priscilla’s broad teachings had not 
been -so thrown away on her that she expected to 
measure every body’s corn in her own bushel measure. 
The sight of a very broad-rimmed, soft-felt hat, bound 
about with a somewhat dingy ribbon, hanging on the 
hall-rack close by her father’s tall silk hat, sent a throb 
of generous pity through her heart (which was not 
cold, only empty). 

“ How dreadfully poor a man must be," she said, to 
wear §uch a hat, and how courageous too," but she 


102 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


recoiled a little at the horrible prospect of finding 
the whole man in keeping with that dissolute looking 
hat ; “ if it only had a stiff rim/’ she sighed, looking with 
disapproval at the broad, limp brim, “ it would look less 
reckless. What a trial if he should want to goto church 
with us to-morrow; I’m positive the faintest zephyr 
would set that brim oscillating. It really looks brigand- 
ish ! I wonder if he does too.” It was with expecta- 
tion at its lowest ebb that she opened the dining-room 
door and found herself in the presence of the two men, 
who had answered the luncheon bell much more 
promptly than she had. They were standing on the 
hearth rug waiting for her with a fair outward show of 
patience. Two strongly contrasting forms and faces. 
Young Cosgrove, tall, thin, with a certain amount of 
supple grace about him that seemed altogether dis- 
proportioned to the length of his legs, was leaning 
against the mantle with both hands in his trowsers’ pock- 
ets, while he looked down into the doctor’s face and 
gave his best attention to a rather long-winded story 
of something his father and his father’s chum had done 
in the days gone by before his birth. It was a thin, 
brown face, lighted up by a pair of uncommonly intelli- 
gent eyes, that the doctor was looking up into, eyes 
which, discovering the young lady’s presence before her 
father did, left the doctor’s beaming face and calmly 
rested on that of his approaching hostess. 

“ Ah ! My daughter. Miss Ambrose, Ferd — Mr. Cos- 


SATAP JUDGMENT. 


103 


grove, I should say, but Ferd slips off the end of my 
tongue so naturally. Effie, you’ve often heard me speak 
of this young man’s father, my chum, old Ferd, I mean,” 
says the doctor all in one breath, purposely making his 
introduction very verbose in view of the fact that he 
had, so far, no intimation of what line of conduct his 
daughter had mapped out for herself in connection with 
this ex-rebel, and in case of embarrassment an avalanche 
of words might serve as a sort of bridge to cross the 
chasm on. But there was no embarrassment and no 
chasm. Mr. Cosgrove extended his hand quite as a 
matter of course. Efhe accepted it, condoning the lack 
of good form in view of the Mississippian’s previous 
advantages or lack of them. 

She had entered the room laudably bent upon 
making her father’s guest feel quite at his ease, but if 
he were not already so he must be a prince of counter- 
feiters. She ‘quite prided herself on her abstract sense 
of justice and was prepared to retract the obnoxious 
adjective “ peculiar ” so soon as it should be proven 
misapplied. She was slightly disconcerted at the 
young man’s placid inspection of her. Peculiar seemed 
to fit him more snugly than ever. Far be it from her 
to expect a man’s manners and his coat to be gauged 
one by the other, but the peculiarity of this young 
man lay in his seeming ignorance of the fact that 
Maurice, who opened the door for him, and who was 
then officiating at the lunch table, was vastly better 


104 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


dressed than himself. Maurice, who was only part 
white, would have scorned to wear that blue coat, 
grown whitish about the seams and shiny about the 
buttons, and that did not accord with the striped 
trowsers that puffed so at the knees with pathetic sug- 
gestions of having been worn a very long time ! 
Maurice would never have been caught in a turn-down 
collar with a narrow silk tie slightly awry, years after 
standing collars and scarfs were considered the 
admissible things ! She would have approved alto- 
gether of this sublimated serenity under so much 
shabbiness if it had seemed to spring from heroic 
endurance, but she was afraid, from the airy uncon- 
sciousness of the young man, that he really did not 
know when a person was well dressed. He didn’t look 
at all like a man who was expiating the sins of his 
fathers in a shabby coat and disreputable trowsers. 
His manners were quietly composed, without lapsing 
into indifference, and when he had any thing to say — for 
Doctor Ambrose, with the garrulity of age, was some- 
thing of a monopolist — he said it a little verbosely 
(quaintly, Effie called it), as a man says things who has 
never been under the necessity of hurrying through 
any thing ; but there were none of those lapses into 
plantation dialect nor reckless disregard for grammar 
that she had supposed must distinguish all Southerners 
from more fortunate people. 

She was glad that her father’s full flow of reminis- 


SATAP JUDGMENT. 


cence claimed the attention of the young man so 
entirely that, as he sat at the side of the table, with his 
eyes turned toward the doctor, she could satisfy her 
curiosity concerning him fully, if a trifle furtively. 
She brought to bear upon this furtive examination the 
intense interest always excited by the first view of any 
species of animal of which one has heard a great deal, 
but with which one has never come in direct contact. 
ThisyoungMississippian, with his brown cheeks, straight, 
dark hair, combed smoothly behind a pair of rather 
prominent ears ; with his long, brown mustache nearly 
hiding a mouth of womanish sensibility ; with his 
superfluity of neck held well up above that distress- 
ingly obsolete collar ; with his long, nervous, brown 
fingers that kept his napkin ring in perpetual motion, 
while he listened or when he spoke, belonged to a type 
that had been held up for criticism and condemnation 
in her hearing from the earliest years of her life. 

How very different, in every particular, from the 
young men one sees every day in Elizabeth,” was her 
mental verdict on the physical man, which may have 
been in Mr. Cosgrove's favor and may not have been. 
She started guiltily when her father, swerving from one 
subject to the other with the suddenness that was 
habitual with him, suddenly addressed himself to her. 

“Well, Miss Ambrose, what do you say to taking 
another male under your protection ? Ferd and I have 
arranged every thing to suit ourselves, and — ” 

8 


lo6 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

‘‘Pardon me the interruption, my good sir, but I 
can not permit you to say that any thing has been 
arranged without consulting Miss Ambrose. That I 
appreciate your kind offer and would gladly avail 
myself of it, if your daughter fully approves, is the 
more correct way of stating it.” 

“ Oh ! of course, of course,” says the doctor, starting 
off more briskly than ever after this interruption, “ but 
there’s no manner of reason in thinking about any 
other arrangement. We’ve got a big house here. 
Room for a dozen instead of two. And here’s Ferd,” 
addressing himself to Effie, “ who’s come all the way 
from Mississippi to study medicine with me; don’t 
know a soul this side the line. Where’s the sense of his 
knocking about in cheap boarding houses when we’ve 
got two or three bedrooms locked up ? The one over 
the library. Pet, with the morning sun, is just the thing 
for him ; and then of nights, when I want to smoke, I 
need not have to shut myself up like a prisoner in 
solitary confinement or run the risk of being ordered 
out of your room with the gim-cracks. She’s down on 
smoke, Ferd. Excuse me, but it does me good to 
mouth the old name. Not that you look at all like 
your father, there’s where I missed it this morning at 
the depot. Ferd, old Ferd, I mean, has red hair, white 
though now, I guess — ” 

“ None at all, rather,” Ferd junior says smilingly. 

“ Bald ! Hey ! To be sure, he’s not been standing 


SJ^AP JUDGMENT. 


107 


still while I’ve been growing old. And blue eyes. I 
was looking out for Ferd’s broad shoulders and short 
legs.” 

“ I believe I take after my mother’s family.” 

Effie made a note of that “ take after,” proposing 
further on to see if its use was warranted by any good 
authority. 

“ And so,” says the doctor, settling every thing with 
a final sweep of his napkin across his lips, “ we’ll tele- 
graph over to New York for his baggage, and make 
him at home.” 

“ I protest,” began Mr. Cosgrove. 

“ Against what ? ” Dr. Ambrose interrupts, tartly. 

“ Against your having taken Miss Ambrose at such 
a decided disadvantage. By laying the proposition 
before her in this way, you have virtually deprived her 
of all power of veto.” 

This was so exactly what Miss Ambrose was herself 
thinking, that she blushed furiously and denied it 
mendaciously: 

‘‘ I am sure if you think you could be comfortable 
and happy in such a monotonous household as this, I 
can agree with father that it would be a good arrange- 
ment. You will not find us at all entertaining. We 
are both very busy people, and correspondingly dull 
company.” 

“ I hope to be very busy, too,” says the young man, 
not nearly so much overcome by her graciousness as 


io8 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


she had expected, but to him, fresh from the larger 
handed hospitality of his section, this concession 
seemed simply a display of ordinary politeness ; “ and 
while I am deeply grateful for the arrangement, I 
should be sorry to have you feel under any necessity of 
entertaining me. I have come North impressed with 
an abiding sense of the necessity of making both edges 
cut for the next few years. I have nothing to fall back 
upon. The old place is pretty well worn out, and is 
not inviting to free labor.” 

“You don’t overflow,” says the doctor, whose 
knowledge of Mississippi hills and Louisiana swamps is 
a trifle obscure. 

“ No. That’s about the only ill we’re not heir to,” 
says Ferdinand, with a ripple of careless laughter, 
which increases Miss Ambrose’s desire to know what 
manner of man this is, who can wear shabby clothes 
with placid indifference, and discuss his own impov- 
erished condition with the stoicism that is generally 
reserved for the misfortunes of one’s friends. 

“ Well ! if Miss Ambrose considers the arrangement 
made, I may as well order my baggage at once,” he 
says, as they all come out into the hall together, 
and he stops in front of the big shabby hat, with arm 
upraised. 

“ Do so,” says the doctor, “or stay, Maurice can do 
it just as well.” 

“ But, Miss Ambrose 1 I ’m waiting for her orders.” 


SJ\rAP JUDGMENT. 1 09 

‘‘ The room is entirely at your disposal, and I hope 
you will be very comfortable in it,” Effie says, a trifle 
frigidly. 

“ Thank you, I don’t intend to be in your way any 
more than I can possibly help. I’m to be the doctor’s 
cub for some time to come, and hope you will make 
use of me in any capacity. I’m not an altogether use- 
less limb. And I am thoroughly grateful for this 
arrangement.” With a little wave of the broad 
brimmed hat, he strode out of the gate with the same 
long swinging stride that had brought him in out of 
the rain. Eflie and her father watched him out of 
sight. 

‘‘Well, what do you think of him?” the doctor 
asked. 

“ I think he is peculiar.” 

“ How ? Snap judgments are unkind and unreliable. 
But how ? ” 

“ Every way. He seems to take things very much 
as a matter of course, even his poverty. Has he always 
been so dreadfully poor?” 

“ His father was one of the richest men in the state 
when the war broke out, and this boy was born to big 
expectations.” 

“ He doesn’t seem to care. He rather makes a joke 
of his extremity.” 

“ That’s not for us to say. Those people have 
accepted the issue like men, and this boy is proud 


1 Id 


THE BAR-SINISTEk. 


enough to hide his scars; but they must be there, 
daughter, they must be there. I’m glad you were so 
sweet about his coming.” 

“ I didn’t know that you gave me any opportunity 
to be any thing else. If you had spoken to me pri- 
vately, it could have been argued for and against.” 

“ But there isn’t any against. It’s just as if I had a 
partner.” 

“ As you please, father. His presence will be noth- 
ing to me. If he is in earnest about his profession I 
shall see little or nothing of him except at table. Of 
course, you will not expect me to alter my evenings for 
him.” 

“ You’ll find him earnest,” says the doctor, answering 
partially. “ He comes of earnest stock. With all his 
seeming carelessness he’s fire and brimstone at bottom. 
It’s in his eyes.” 

“ How very uncomfortable! I hope he isn’t com- 
bustible. We are very serene here at present. I sup- 
pose it wouldn’t be safe to talk as if there had been 
a war, or a colored person, or any thing of that sort, 
you know.” 

And while he is being so freely discussed, Mr. Cos- 
grove, with due consideration for the cost of every 
word, is telegraphing home after telegraphing for his 
baggage. 

“Am all right. Taken into bosom of family. 
Work hard ! Doctor a trump.” 


CHAPTER X. 


'‘SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?” 
ERHAPS Mr. Ferdinand will never know how 



i. much he was indebted to his shabby felt hat, his 
pathetically thread-bare coat and his unconscious pose 
as martyr, for the promptness with which he got into 
Miss Ambrose’s good graces and was treated by her 
with a sweet cordiality that he accepted as a matter 
of course, while her father marveled greatly thereat. 
All the girls with whom the young man’s decidedly 
limited experience had brought him in contact were 
cordial and friendly, totally unversed in those stiff 
conventionalities and pointless points of etiquette 
which would have been absurdly misplaced in the free 
and easy intercourse of one plantation with another; so 
he had nothing by which to gauge the extent of the 
thaw in his hostess’s icy courtesy, that delighted and 
amazed her father. 

He, the doctor, was secretly conscious of his own 
daring and the unexpectedly happy results therefrom. 
He knew that if he had so introduced a spruce young 
man, with short clipped hair, with wide-awake audacity 
in his eyes, a dapper, conventional “ derby ” on his 


112 


THE BAR^SINISTER, 


head and fashionable tweed on his back, into the bosom 
of his family as unceremoniously as he had introduced 
this young exile frpm Dixie, he would have run the risk 
of being severely and persistently snubbed for his hasty 
philanthropy, and life would have been made a burden 
to the recipient of it ; for the average young man with 
his monotony of physique and dress, his hueless mind 
and flavorless experience was an object of especial dis- 
like' to his daughter, to whom Cosgrove, with his store 
of tragic memories, his quaint acceptance of a lot of 
poverty and deprivation, such as had never come with- 
in her well-sheltered sphere of observation, his unre- 
served indorsement of the issues of the war, and 
his quaintly humorous acknowledgment of complete 
defeat, assumed the proportions of a psychological 
study ; a study which she pursued with all the more 
eagerness when she found out, contrary to her expect- 
ations, that he was not at all averse to talking about 
things as they were, or had been, or might possiblyyet 
be in that “ dark land, the South,” a spot which her 
imagination had always peopled with a race of men 
lineally descended from the ogres and the earth-de-mons 
of the dark ages. Perhaps (it dawned upon her) she 
had not been doing these slave-holding people full jus- 
tice all these years. Perhaps Aunt Priscilla’s very 
rigid views concerning them and their iniquities (the 
correctness of which views she had never dreamed of 
questioning) might have been a trifle over-done. Per- 


‘ ‘ SHALL A ULD A CQ UAINTANCE BE FORGO T 1 1 3 

haps, like another historical personage, between whom 
and the slave-holder of the South there was doubtless 
much in common, he may have been painted blacker 
than he was. She resolved that it was her duty to give 
unbiased heed (or as unbiased as possible) to all the 
young man had to tell, for. there was no withholding cre- 
dence from the simple testimony he bore to the heroic 
lives and patient endurance of the people to whom he 
belonged. Not eager or querulous testimony, nor 
given with importunate eagerness to excite sympathy, 
only manfully and modestly when asked to do so. The 
acme of interest and curiosity on her part was reached 
one evening when Cosgrove had been with them some 
months, and had made himself quietly entertaining in 
a descriptive vein over the dessert and coffee. Dr. 
Ambrose had made an abrupt move to leave the dinner 
table on account of the heat. 

“ We can finish our talk in the office, Ferd, over our 
cigars, daughter will excuse us ; ” then the two men 
had gone one way and she another, as usual, they to 
defile and befog the atmosphere of the doctor’s office 
with cigar smoke, she to sit in dignified and unsmoked 
loneliness in the sacred alcove where Ferd had never 
yet penetrated, catching only fleeting and suggestive 
hints of its splendor as he passed the drawn portiere to 
and from the dining-room. 

But on this occasion Miss Ambrose found the con- 
templation of her pretty but familiar surroundings 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


114 

cruelly inadequate to her entertainment. Neither 
plaque nor picture nor book-shelf could win one glance 
of approval from the serious eyes that were fixed 
abstractedly on the soft, fluffy rug under her feet while 
she meditated a very daring step. With a sudden 
resolve that sent a soft flush slowly up from cheek to 
brow, she gathered into her arms a brilliant hued pile 
of wool pierced with two long ivory needles, and 
swooped down upon the two men where they sat in 
wordless content over their cigars. 

“You were going to tell us about yourchurch going, 
when father walked off with you,” she said, scorning a 
false plea for her unprecedented intrusion. “ I should 
so like to have you go on.” 

She smiled a little uneasily as the Mississippian 
sprang to his feet on her entrance and stood courte- 
ously with his hand on the back of his chair, while she 
settled herself into the big upholstered affair that was 
planted immovably under the drop light. This young 
man always made it seem such a momentous affair 
for her to come into the room ; it was really discom- 
forting. She was afraid he was a trifle obsolete. 

Ferd moved toward the open window with his cigar 
in his fingers. 

“ Don’t throw away your cigar, please. If you don’t 
resume it I shall feel terribly in the way. You see I 
intruded on your cigar, not it on me. If you refuse to 
smoke and talk I will go back to my own room.” 


SHALL A ULD ACQUALMTAHCE BE EORGOT? " 1 15 

‘‘ Thank you. Mother and the girls have spoiled 
us — father and me I mean — by letting us smoke in the 
sitting-room at home, but I’m not such a muff as to 
expect indulgence at your hands.” 

‘‘ Smoke, Ferd, smoke in peace ! Depend upon it, she 
means it, or she wouldn’t have said it. It is one of my 
daughter’s most striking peculiarities (sex and age con- 
sidered, a very striking one) that she always means what 
she says. But as I don’t want you to undervalue your 
blessings, I will tell you that you’re the first man that 
ever got permission to smoke in her presence. It is 
either a sign of interest in you, of which I hope you will 
try to prove yourself worthy, or a sign of reconstruc- 
tion in her, of which you will please make a note. I’m 
always sure some deep internal motive is surging in 
my daughter’s heart when she appears with Penelope’s 
web in her hand. Penelope’s web,” leaning over and 
spreading the gay woolen thing out over Efihe’s lap, 
“ is expected to eventuate in an Afghan for me. If 
I die before it is completed, and man’s age is but three- 
score and ten, I will make you my residuary legatee, 
Ferd.” 

Effie waited very patiently for this harangue to ex- 
haust itself. The long ivory needles were click-clack- 
ing industriously. She leaned back with a sigh. She 
wished she could enter more heartily into her father’s 
jocularity, but Aunt Priscilla had always classed fun 
and frivolity together. She fixed her grave eyes on 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


1 16 

the flame of the match by which Mr. Cosgrove was 
rekindling his cigar. 

“ I am very much interested in all you have to tell 
me about the South,” she said, “ and I hope you won’t 
think it impertinent curiosity either.” 

“ I think I quite understand,” he said, dropping the 
burned match into the cuspadore, and resuming his chair, 
puffing fora second in silence to make sure of his cigar, 
then clasping one arm about his crossed leg, he added, 
“ I only wish such curiosity had been a little more 
general before the war. It would have been better for 
us all.” 

“Why?” 

“ Because, if there had been a little more intelligent 
curiosity among the people of the North concerning the 
people of the South, rather than a concentration of im- 
bittered interest in our one accursed institution of 
slavery, it would have led to a clearer understanding 
on both sides. Because, if we had come face to face 
with each other instead of being the puppets of poli- 
ticians on both sides, greedy of self aggrandizement 
alone, it would have been well. Because, if we had 
reached out after each other’s love and esteem with a 
sincere desire for a better mutual understanding, the 
same results might have been achieved in the long run 
without the horrible sacrifices that went to its final 
accomplishment.” 

“ By the Eternal, I believe you are right, sir ! ” says 


‘ ‘ SHALL A ULD A CQ UAINTANCE BE FORGOT ? ” 1 1 7 

Dr. Ambrose, bringing his clenched fist mercilessly 
down upon his own knee. 

“ What did the people of the North know of the people 
of the South,” Ferdinand continued, rising in his earnest- 
ness and facing eagerly toward the girl whose sweet, up- 
raised face glowed with answering earnestness, “ but 
what they saw of the wealthy among them, in their 
butterfly flutterings about some Northern watering- 
place in hot weather, or what they read about them in 
partisan newspapers that colored and distorted every 
statement to suit the exigencies of the times or the 
tastes of their own constituents ? What did the peo- 
ple of the South know of the people of the North, but 
what they, in their obscure plantation homes, heard in 
distant echoes transmitted through agencies that lent 
themselves to the propagation of envy, hatred, malice, 
and all uncharitableness ? Why, sir,” facing excitedly 
upon the doctor, “ since IVe come North I’ve learned, 
as a thousand years of theorizing over the whys and 
wherefores of the lost cause could not have taught me, 
the utter madness of our people. I’ve seen enough of 
the material prosperity of this country to make me 
marvel at the fatuous daring of the men who precipi- 
tated the secession movement. The South was no 
more prepared to grapple with the North in a death- 
grip than a starved child could grapple with a well-fed 
giant. I marvel at the daring, but I glory in the daunt- 
less courage it evoked I ” 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


ii8 

‘‘You speak of those men as if you were an out- 
sider,” says Effie, noting what she gladly hails as a 
sign of regeneration. 

“ You mistake me entirely. I, having come to years 
of discretion since the costly finale has been reached, 
having been a partaker of the woes that sprung from 
the war without having participated in the blind passion 
of its inception, feel warranted in speaking of its results 
rather than its causes. • But it was not the political 
aspect of the South we were discussing over our coffee. 
It was the lives of our women.” He smiled down into 
Effie’s face. This young man’s smile was one of his 
best points. It was a sort of sudden illumination gen- 
erally quite unexpected and fleeting, leaving his 
features all the quieter for its having been. Not that 
his was an uncheerful face ; it was more as if he had 
not known much occasion for laughter. 

“Yes,” says Efiie, with a nod of unusual eagerness, 
“You said they never shopped, nor went to theaters, 
nor churches, nor things, and I wondered how they 
lived through the days.” 

“Happily, busily and intelligently,” says Ferd, “in 
spite of it all ; ” then he found himself wondering if 
this Boston-reared girl, with a nameless charm of sweet 
earnestness about her that made him forget her 
pedantry and her narrowness and her fixedness in a 
groove that was altogether unfamiliar to him, would 
indorse his use of those adverbs if she could know his 


SHALL AULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?'* 119 

mother and the girls as he knew them — could look in 
upon the old plantation sitting-room, with its faded 
ante-bellum glories in such sharp contrast with its 
cheap renovations, on evenings when the family was 
all gathered there ; his father and his mother and the 
three girls and himself, all clustered about the center 
table, where were always to be found the papers and 
magazines of the day as fast as their slow moving 
mails could fetch them : could see mother, with 
her soft white bands of hair tucked smoothly away 
under her cap frill, leaning back with her still bright 
eyes ciosed behind her gold-rimmed glasses and her 
hands folded restfully in her lap (such busy hands they 
were too), while father read aloud from their favorite 
weekly, and Annie, the pet of them all, sat playing 
without notes, softly, so as not to drown the reader’s 
voice, on the piano that was almost disreputable for 
want of repairs they could not afford ; and the other 
two girls puzzled their united brains over the latest 
fashion book, so that the dresses they must make 
for themselves should at least approximate the 
fashions, or Puss — Puss, so intensely black that 
she looked like a mammoth silhouette outlined 
against the white-plastered walls, the girls’ house-maid, 
torment and pet all rolled into one — stood mutely by 
the piano, marveling at the melody Missannie ” 
evoked from the cracked and yellow keys, with an in- 
tensely greasy primer clasped to her bosom — for Puss 


120 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


was undergoing the agonies that beset the tiresome 
path of knowledge — and presently when “ Missannie ” 
should be tired of the disreputable piano she would 
take the disreputable primer and hear the lesson Puss 
was expected to know but never did. Aloud he 
added, “ But it’s pretty hard lines on them and no 
mistake. A fellow doesn’t realize quite how rough 
until he gets away from it all himself. I think of 
mother and the girls every Sunday morning when the 
church bells ring and the day looks so different from 
the other six up here, when there’s something beside 
the stoppage of a plow to mark it. And when you 
come out of your room. Miss Ambrose, looking so 
pretty and placid, and go off to the enjoyment of a 
good sermon and fine music and prayers delivered in a 
civilized tongue, that you find quite tolerable, even if 
long, from your softly upholstered pews, I wonder 
if you know just how smoothly the machinery does 
work for you ? ” 

It was so utterly impossible to tell from this rather 
vehemently delivered speech whether she was being 
complimented on her prettiness or denounced as an 
ingrate to Providence, that Effie stared at the speaker 
helplessly for a second, then murmured: I hope I’m 
not unmindful of my blessings, Mr. Cosgrove.” 

He laughed lightly. 

“ I didn’t in the least mean to draw any invidious 
comparisons, Miss Effie, but. I can’t help wishing that 


•• SHALL A ULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" I2i 

some of the good things which come to you as a simple 
matter of course, could go to brighten the dull lives of 
my dear ones on the old plantation.” ' 

“ What do you mean by prayers in a civilized 
tongue?” Effie asked. 

“ Oh ! well, you mustn’t weigh my words too 
particularly. We are a God-fearing people down South, 
though you might not think so, and what I say, please 
understand, has reference only to my own little piney 
woods settlement, miles and miles from any town. A 
state of affairs exists there which is inseparable from 
the fact that it is exclusively an agricultural country, 
with very few whites, and those so far apart that no 
community of interest can obtain. You know there’s 
no such thing as regular church-going among us. May- 
be two or three times a year word will be sent around 
that some seedy parson will preach at somebody’s 
house, and we’ll ride miles upon miles through the 
mud or through the dust, as it may chance to be, to 
hear a fellow that your man Maurice here could put to 
the blush.” 

“ And the poor colored people ? ” Effie asks, true to 
her earliest sympathies. 

“ Oh ! they’re a deal better off than we are,” says 
Ferd, with a twinkle in his eyes ; “ they’ve got about 
ten preachers to every plantation, and a regular meet- 
ing-house, too.” 

“ Where do they get them ? " 

6 


122 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“Which? The preachers or the meeting-houses?” 

“Both.” 

“They manufacture the first, and we build the last.” 

“But manufacture out of what?” 

“ Out of the raw material. Any fellow with a good, 
strong pair of lungs and an easy flow of language is 
equipped for the pulpit. You see they are not over 
fastidious.” 

Here the doctor interposed a lot of questions touch- 
ing the political aspirations of the race, and Miss Am- 
brose subsided into a thoughtful silence. It all had 
such an extremely barbaric sound to her, and yet this 
young man with the delicate profile, and eyes luminous 
with intelligence, whose voice was so pleasantly modu- 
lated, and whose manners were rather oppressively 
polite, wasn’t in the least barbaric ! She wondered if 
the women who never went any where, or saw any body, 
or heard any thing, could possibly resemble other wom- 
en in any respect. How very like oysters they must 
feel ! Really, it was a field for missionary labor. She 
wondered if missionaries would be well received there ? 
It made her shudder to think how empty the souls of 
such people must be. Somebody ought to stir in the 
matter. 

“ Mr. Cosgrove ” — she spoke with unusual timidity, 
but then the ground was unknown and might prove 
treacherous, “do missionaries ever go among those 
poor people ? ” 


“ SHALL A ULD A CQ UA IN T A NCR BE FORGOT? ” 1 23 

“Which poor people, Miss Ambrose?” Ferd's 
mustache twitched tremulously and he glued his eyes 
to the spark of his cigar with absorbed interest. 

“ Because,” says Doctor Ambrose, warding off the 
blow, “ my daughter is consumed with missionary zeal 
and it must find a vent. If you won’t let her work 
among your darkeys, she will be starting off to Siam 
some fine morning, leaving me desolate.” 

“ I was not thinking of the colored people, father,” 
she says with intense gravity of voice, fixing her eyes 
imploringly on Ferd’s inscrutable countenance ; “ I was 
thinking of the poor white people, the women es- 
pecially.” 

“ Define the class you would like to benefit more 
accurately. Miss Ambrose,” he says, looking away from 
her earnest eyes lest she should detect the amusement 
in his. She leaned forward, with her smooth, white 
hands clasped over the gay wools of the afghan ; she 
wished she could utter the thoughts that were in her. 
She knew she seemed cold and selfish and absorbed in 
her own narrow circle, but there was that within her 
that stirred restlessly at every recital of hardship and 
deprivation endured by others. The world teemed 
with great wrongs to be righted, and here she sat day 
after day, dreaming, idling, wasting ! A selfish cum- 
berer of the earth ! 

“ Perhaps you won’t quite know what I mean, but ” 
— an excited pull at the gong on the office door start- 


124 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


led them all, and drowned her words. The doctor 
answered the summons in shuffling haste. 

“ What the devil ” he began angrily, as the 

massive form of a hackman that all the town knew 
was thrust unceremoniously into their presence. 

“No time for gettin’ mad, now, doctor. I’ve driv’ 
up from the depot in a rattlin’ hurry to fetch you. 
There’s a old lady down there in the station waitin’ 
room with some hurt about her, and you’re wanted. 
They told me to whoop you up.” 

“ You may as well come too, Ferd,” said the doctor, 
getting hastily into his light top-coat, and reaching for 
his case of instruments. “ If there’s any bones broken, 
I may need assistance that every body can’t render. 
Who is she, any how ? ” he asked the driver a minute 
later as he clambered into the waiting carriage. 

“ Don’t know, sir. Stranger. Got off train here. 
Dark ! Fell and broke some of her machinery. Reckon 
’twere tol’able rusty, any how. She ain’t no spring 
chicken,” and banging the door after Mr. Cosgrove in 
such excited zeal that the young man’s heels narrowly 
escaped abrasion, he mounted to his box and whipped 
his horses into a spanking trot. 

“ Where are your friends, madam ? ” asked the 
doctor, having satisfied himself by a thorough examin- 
ation, that the stranger’s leg was broken and her case 
likely to prove a serious one. 

“Very far away, doctor; none this side of the Rocky 


“ SHALL AULD acquaintance BE FORGOT?" 125 

Mountains unless I can claim you. I am traveling 
alone ; I used to live here a great many years ago. 
My name was Stone ; Letty Stone. The pretty Letty 
of Elizabeth they called me more than a quarter of a 
century ago ; and you, oh ! Tve not forgotten the 
name of John Ambrose. I heard them say go for Dr. 
Ambrose — ” a spasm of pain seized her, wringing 
moans in place of words from her quivering lips. 

“ Letty Stone ! ” 

The doctor peered inquisitorially over his glasses at 
the delicate features now pinched and distorted with 
suffering. It was the face of a pretty old woman, with 
fluffy white curls clustering on the temples, and gen- 
tle blue eyes that looked at him piteously now for 
help. 

“Fetch some men with a mattress, - Ferd ! ” he 
turned from the settee to say; “ and you," to the cu- 
rious crowding loungers, “ get out of here, everyone of 
you ! " He closed the door of the waiting-room after 
the departing crowd, and came back to the sufferer, 
softly repeating her name more than once. 

“ Letty Stone ! Letty Stone ! Here in the waiting- 
room at old Elizabeth station ! Why bless my soul, 
where did you come from ? " 

“ I came back here to see sister Eliza once more, 
John, before I died, for we’re both getting old, but 
they tell me she’s gone ! And when I told them to 
carry me to Mrs. Levison’s, they told me there was not 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


1 26 

any Mrs. Levison. And how about Jenny? and brother 
Jim ? ” Tears welled in the patient eyes. 

“Gone; all your folks gone! long ago ! A new set’s 
sprung up, Letty ; you and I belong to the old ; we’re 
about the only ones left. I’ll take you to my home 
and care for you.” 

“ No ! no ! not there.” 

“ There’s nobody there that you ever wronged. My 
daughter never heard the name of Letty Stone.” 

“ But that’s not my name now, John Ambrose. I’ve 
been married this many a year. But you mustn’t 
feel bound to take care of me. I’m not a poor woman. 
The Lord has dealt bountifully by me. I’m able to 
buy good nursing. It’s a pity I came now, but I got 
to hankering after a sight of the old place and a 
glimpse of the old faces, but there’s none of them here 
to greet me, not a hand to clasp mine, not an eye to 
recognize me. You’ll cure me up as quick as you can, 
John, and let me go away again. It was a foolish 
woman’s whim that brought me here.” 

“You shall be taken care of, Letty, and not grudg- 
ingly either; but if there’s any body you’d like especially 
to have near you I’ll telegraph for them, for you are 
going to have a tedious time of it and my house is 
open to any body you want.” 

“ It’s good of you,” she said slowly, “ and, it’s like 
you. No ! there’s no one I want ; I can pay for 
nursing and I can stand whatever the Lord chooses to 


“ SHALL A ULD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?" .127 

send Upon me uncomplainingly. Who knows what 
design He had in bringing me here ; and even with this 
racking pain on me, John, I can say He doeth all 
things well.” 

“You’ve gotten hold of a pretty strong trust in 
Providence if you can see the Lord’s hand in the midst 
of your sufferings,” said the doctor, not irreverently, 
simply wonderingly ; “ if I remember right, Letty Stone 
wasn’t so meek and unrepining.” 

“ Laetitia Stone was a wickedly rebellious, flighty girl 
that brought unhappiness on every body that ever loved 
her. I can hardly think of her as my old self, John. But 
the Lord has brought me up out of a horrible pit, out of 
the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock and estab- 
lished my goings; I can see His hand in everything 
that befalls me and I know He has work for me to do 
here, or He would not have stricken me so that I am 
not free to go away again, even now that there’s noth- 
ing to stay for, humanly speaking.” 

“Well, if it’s active work He’s got for you to do. 
I’m afraid you’ll not be a satisfactory tool in the Lord’s 
hands soon. Ah ! here is my man ! ” as Ferd entered 
with four men and a stretcher; “now then, easy, 
boys ! ” 

She bore the pain of removal unflinchingly, and 
when finally they had deposited her with womanly 
gentleness upon the bed Effle had made haste to prepare 
for her, she smiled bravely up into the pitying faces 


128 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


around her. “ You’re all very good to me ! Thank you ! 
J ohn’s daughter ? ” she asked, laying her hand on Effie’s, 
that were busy with her bonnet ribbons. My name 
is Shaw, dear, Mrs. Laetitia Shaw ! I’m afraid I’m 
going to be a burden to you, but the Lord’s hand is in 
it. Blessed be His name.” 


CHAPTER XL 


A SAINTLY SINNER. 

Lord’s hand is in it. Blessed be the name 
J. of the Lord ! As my need is, so shall my 
strength be. He will not forsake me.” 

This was the answer the bishop’s wife gave to Dr. 
Ambrose as some hours later he stood by her bedside, 
adding a few words of pitying exhortation to patience 
to the instructions he had just finished giving the hired 
nurse for the night. 

I’m glad you can take it so serenely. You are sure 
there’s no one you’d like to have come? Plenty of 
room. Daughter and I will do all we can to keep your 
heart up.” 

** It’s never down, John. Thank you, no ; there’s no 
one I want.” 

She smiled bravely up into his rugged, kindly face, 
then closed her eyes wearily. The doctor tip-toed 
laboriously out of the room to join Effie and young 
Cosgrove in the library. It was long past midnight, 
but anxiety for the stranger so summarily arrived with- 
in their gates banished all idea of sleep from the three. 
Ferd took a professional interest in the case, having 


130 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


tried his ’prentice hand on Mrs. Shaw’s broken bones 
and been cordially commended by his master. 

“How is she, father?” Effie asked, as the doctor 
creaked into their presence. 

“ Pretty comfortable, all things considered. She’s 
not as young as she once was, and bones knit slowly at 
her time of life. I have told her that she is in for a 
tedious siege of it, but she seems pretty well fortified.” 

“ She is absolutely heroic in her endurance of pain,” 
says Ferd ; “ I never saw any thing like it.” 

“ She was always a plucky one,” the doctor answers, 
gazing dreamily before him as he conjured up the vision 
of Letty Stone’s girlhood, “ and tremendously set in 
all her ways.” 

“ Tell us about her, father. She is so pretty and 
patient and saintly. I am quite sure I am going to 
love her.” 

The doctor laughed. Mockery, mirth and tender- 
ness all went into the make-up of that laugh. 

“You knew her when 'she was young,” says Effie, by 
way of launching the story-teller on memory’s tide. 

“Yes; I knew Letty Stone when she was young. 
All the boys in Elizabeth knew her, and half of them 
were in love with her. I belonged to that half. No- 
body called her saintly then, though. She was just 
the merriest witch that ever set a lot of boys by the 
ears. A man never knew how big a fool he could make 
of himself until Letty Stone got through with him. 


A SAINTL Y SINNER. 


131 

She was an orphan, and lived here with a married 
sister a little older than herself. She took the town by 
surprise finally by going over to New York to visit 
some relatives and never coming back. Her sister gave 
out that Letty had gone to California with relatives. 
I never heard of her from that day up to to-night. 
She don’t seem to be over-stocked with kin now. She 
insists upon it there’s nobody to send for. She’ll be 
plucky to the end. There’s no discount on Letty 
Stone, young or old.” 

“ I shall love to attend to her, father,” says Efhe, 
vvith the enthusiasm that she always held in reserve for 
people or occasions that were 7iot commonplace. “ I am 
quite sure she is no ordinary character. She will be a 
study for me.” 

“ No, she’s no ordinary character. She seems to me 
to be rather an exaggerated sort of a Christian, though. 
The woman that can trace the hand of the Lord in the 
breaking of her bones is certainly not the sort of 
woman one stumbles over every day. She has the 
spirit of endurance that demands the stake and fagot 
for full exercise.” 

“ Don’t you think, father, that the spirit of endur- 
ance is quite as strong now as it was in the days of the 
early Christian martyrs, only the safe surroundings and 
commonplace conditions of to-day hold it in abey- 
ance ? ” asks Effie, always ready to pursue the intense 
view of the subject; *‘and don’t you believe that 


132 


THE BAR^SINISTER, 


women are prepared to go just as far in support of con^ 
science as they ever were?” 

Dr. Ambrose yawned audibly and looked over her 
head as she stood in front of him, to say : “ I shall 
want you to help me dress the leg, Ferd, to-morrow as 
soon as the old lady has taken some refreshment. As 
long as this accident was to befall (as she regards it), 
you may as well extract all the instruction possible out 
of it. Come, it is time we were all in bed. Good- 
night, puss.” He stooped to kiss his daughter good- 
night, but as she turned away in silent displeasure the 
caress lodged on the tip of her nose. 

Evidently her father had not even heard what she 
said. His whole mind was on that broken leg, and so 
was Mr. Cosgrove’s. She was nothing but a child, a 
foolish child, to these two men ! Her views were not 
even worth listening to ! They could do without her 
just as well as with her. Ferd sprang to open the door 
for her. He smiled down into her overcast face as he 
said : 

“ I believe in it ! ” 

“ In what? ” 

“ In woman’s enthusiastic advocacy of what she 
believes to be right. I think every true, earnest woman 
has the germ of a martyr in her bosom.” 

“Oh! thanks! I would quite as lief be ignored, as 
papa ignores me, as to — ” 

“To what, as you won’t finish ? ” 


A SAINTL Y SINNER. 


133 


“Be laughed at by — anybody else. Good-night, Mr. 
Cosgrove.” 

“ Please believe I am not laughing at you. I 
shouldn’t dare do so.” 

“You have my permission to dare it, if the inclina- 
tion seizes you.” It wasn’t very encouraging, but she 
looked so thoroughly handsome with the red spots of 
suppressed excitement in her cheeks, with her solemn 
eyes ablaze, and she was so much more comprehensible 
when she showed temper just like an ordinary mortal, 
that Ferd waxed bold to add ; 

“ But, I hope you will never give your allegiance to 
any cause that can possibly furnish scope for mar- 
tyrdom.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Because, once you think you are right, let you be 
never so far wrong, you will out-do all the martyrs of 
old in obstinacy: And then, you know,” he added 
with twinkling eyes, “ saints and martyrs are such 
excessively uncomfortable house-mates for ordinary 
mortals.” 

“ You are not likely to suffer any practical discom- 
fort of that sort, Mr. Cosgrove, as long as you remain 
with us. We are thoroughly commonplace and easy- 
going. But I’m glad you think me capable of such 
great things, any how.” 

And so, in the guest chamber of Dr. Ambrose’s 
house for the next two months to come Mrs. Laetitia 


134 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Shaw lay a patient sufferer and cheerful convalescent, 
ministered to by the father and the (daughter with a 
wholeness of sweet charity that knew no stint nor 
tiring. 

The sick woman wrote no letters, nor did she receive 
any. No questions were asked her touching her own 
home, and she volunteered no information. She had 
come East on a mission. Elizabeth had been made the 
objective point of her visit simply because it had been 
her old home. She had gravitated there naturally. 
The longing to look upon the face of her own kindred 
had been strong within her. But she found herself 
more of a stranger in the old place than the young 
medical student from the South, who helped Dr. 
Ambrose cure her. Surely then, this drawing toward 
the old home must have a deeper meaning than the 
seeking of old faces, the yearning for dear voices, 
silenced now forever. She had been led thither by the 
hand of God, direct. There was no such thing as 
chance. She had been cast helpless upon the mercy 
of these people for God’s own good purposes. The 
plan of operations that had been mapped out for her 
by those in authority, who had sent her out to recruit 
for the ranks of the Saints, had been narrowed by 
an act of Divine interposition down to the circle of 
which she formed a temporary member. What was 
she to think, but that God had sent her to rescue this 
sweet girl, who hovered about her constantly under a 


A SAINTLY SINNER. 


135 


strange fascination, from the error of her ways? It was 
from the ranks of the refined and the educated that 
the Saints must be recruited. It was a reproach which 
she yearned to cast off from her people, that it was 
only the ignorant and benighted, or the grossly vicious 
who accepted the tenets of the New Gospel! This 
was why, when in conclave of the Elders it was decided 
to send an emissary East, Mrs. Shaw had volunteered 
to fill that delicate position. Those whom she brought 
into the fold should be such as would shed luster upon 
the Church ! Her pre-arranged plan had been to oper- 
ate in New York City; this coming to Elizabeth had 
been but for a day’s sojourn ! A greeting and a fare- 
well ! But God had ordained otherwise. His meaning 
was clearly to be traced. Her work was close at hand. 
Helpless and crippled, she must be about the Lord’s 
bidding. She must impress the message He sent by 
her upon the pure white tablet of Efifie Ambrose’s 
heart, unmistakably and indelibly. One such earnest 
nature rescued from the error of its ways, were worth 
a hundred common converts. This girl once enrolled 
among the Saints would be not only a disciple but an 
apostle. 

It is characteristic of religious fanatics that by con- 
stant contemplation of one view of the subject judg- 
ment and conscience become so warped that no other 
point of view is possible. Remorselessly, persistently, 
secretively, this woman, whose whole soul would have 


136 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


revolted at any act of treachery, recognized as such by 
her own conscience, set about the task of winning Dr. 
Ambrose’s daughter over to Mormonism. Her heart 
yearned over those who walked in darkness, while she 
received the full effulgence shed by the New Gospel 
on all its followers. She was ready to endure miscon- 
struction and obloquy to an unlimited extent so long 
as it was part of the discipline for her soul that bespoke 
her one of the anointed. Aware that her field of use- 
fulness, in the particular instance of the doctor’s 
daughter, would be sown with obstructive tares, if, 
unaided and physically enfeebled, she should be com- 
pelled to combat the fierce opposition and masculine 
scorn of rugged John Ambrose, she wove her mesh of 
subtle arguments and perilous sophisms about the 
girl’s bewildered fancy with a delicacy of caution and 
a refinement of flattery that made it all the more 
durable in the long run. 

At first it was but as a listener to delightfully told 
tales of travel that Efifie, morning after morning, sat 
with clasped hands and eyes attent,' while the pretty 
old woman, with the fluffy white curls and the gentle 
blue eyes and the softly sympathetic voice, lay back 
in the big invalid chair and entertained her. Per- 
haps neither one of them could ever have told at 
what particular juncture narrative glided into instruc- 
tion, instruction into persuasion, persuasion into ex- 
hortation, exhortation into warning on the one part 


A SAINTL Y SINNER. 


137 


or on the other ; curiosity into interest, interest into 
anxiety, anxiety into approval, approval into accept- 
ance. 

It was not with any conscious purpose of deceiving 
her father that Effie failed to enlighten him about the 
moral convulsions that were shaking her untried soul 
to its very center. It was not her habit to show him 
the workings of her mind. She was only with him a 
relaxation, she thought, never conscious of how much 
a study he had made of her before lovingly concluding 
to take her just as she was. He would never see this 
thing as she began to see it. It would only be dis- 
quieting to both of them to discuss it. She would go 
with this lovely, refined old lady, as safe a guide as 
one could have, and spy out this strange land for her- 
self. 

“ But father, poor dear, he will miss me,” she said, 
arguing for and against before the moment of final ac- 
ceptance. 

“ He gave you up for ten years for your temporal 
welfare, can he not spare you for your spiritual gain 
as well ? He will follow you. Never fear, dear, but 
that the separation will be a short one. The Lord’s 
hand is in it. Plainly and unmistakably He led me 
to you. You have heard His message, decide for your- 
self.” 

Did she decide for herself? Was it of her own 

accord that, just the night before the bishop’s wife was 
10 


38 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


ready to flit again from the old town that thirty years 
before she had stolen away from so noiselessly, the 
girl went to her, and with a trembling voice but reso- 
lute eyes, said : 

“ I will go with you ! If it is as you tell me that 
there I may find a lovelier, holier, higher consecration 
of a woman’s faculties than she can ever hope to 
attain elsewhere, I will accept the gospel of your 
teaching without one single reservation. For here, 
what am I ? ” 

“ The thrall of circumstances, dear. An imprisoned 
soul, a wasted organism,” says the bishop’s wife, with 
that positivism that seemed to the girl the embodi- 
ment of a wisdom that was ready with a solution of 
her every doubt, so soon as it found utterance. 

Mrs. Shaw took the pliant, plastic nature into her 
own vigorous hands. The girl found in her what she 
had lost in the aunt to whom she had given so gener- 
ous a share of that enthusiastic allegiance which all 
strong, unique natures demand from imaginative ones. 
Once committed to the step of following this silver- 
tongued prophetess out into that strange country 
where “ God revealed Himself in special teachings to 
His chosen people,” Efifie grew dreamily indifferent to 
the minor details of the Hegira. It was the bishop’s 
wife who settled the order of their going, and timed it 
so that no disquieting scenes might imperil the success 
of her scheme. It was the bishop’^ wife who con- 


A SAINTL Y SINNER. 


139 


vinced her that a letter of explanation left in her 
father’s desk was by far the most sensible form of 
leave-taking. It was the bishop’s wife who lulled her 
remorse and strengthened her resolution by reminding 
her of the many years her father had voluntarily fore- 
gone her society. It was the bishop’s wife who fired that 
fervent young soul with visions of a life possible here 
on earth wherein she, as God’s chosen handmaiden, 
might cover herself with light as with a garment. It 
was the bishop’s wife who conjured her to walk by 
faith — that faith which is the substance of things hoped 
for, the evidence of things not seen. And it was on 
the arm of the older woman that the rash girl leaned 
for strength at the last moment of sore trial, when she 
passed out from under the roof that had sheltered her 
cradle, to return — When? How? Who knows? 


CHAPTER XII. 


STRIC KEN HEARTS. 

OU don’t think it shabby of Ferd and me saying 



X good-by now, Mrs. Shaw, nor abuse us for not 
being here to see you off this afternoon ? Effie’ll drive 
you down to the depot in the phaeton, and Maurice 
will check your baggage through to — well, wherever 
you’re going. I’ve got a specially interesting case over 
in Newark this morning, and, as it’s part of Ferd’s 
education to go along with me on such occasions. I’m 
afraid we can’t either one of us get back by luncheon 
to see you to the train.” 

The bishop’s wife looked smilingly up into her old 
friend’s face while he thus apologized for going about 
his business, and her gentle blue eyes never quailed as 
she answered graciously : 

“Don’t spend a thought on me, John. I’m used 
to getting off and on trains by myself, and am not 
always so awkward as I was here, getting off with a 
broken limb. But it was a blessed accident, after all ! 
You’ve been very good to me, John, and I thank you 
for all you’ve done. Effie thinks of going to the city 
with me.” 


STRICKEN HEARTS. 


141 


“All right. She hasn’t done any shopping for an 
age. How much is it, Pet?” and with the last words, 
the doctor’s pocket-book came prominently into view. 

Efifie pushed it away with a trembling hand. “ Noth- 
ing, father, nothing. You mustn’t be so good to me. 
You’ll break my heart.” 

For a second she clasped her arms about his neck in 
a frenzy of remorseful indecision. How could she go? 
Mrs. Shaw’s voice, cool, calm, incisive, broke the spell 
with words chosen with the wisdom of the serpent : 

“ I see you have yet to learn, friend Ambrose, that 
your dear girl is not of the sort that hasn’t an idea 
above a ribbon or a yard of lace ! She has a soul that 
refuses to be fed on froth. It knows its own higher 
needs.” 

“Bless my soul! Who talks of froth?” the old 
man laughed, as he pushed his daughter far enough 
away to look into her troubled eyes. . She was un- 
doubtedly queer ! It must be Priscilla’s fault! But 
the buggy was waiting, and putting back his rejected 
pocket-book, he kissed her and went off to his case, with 
never a thought of the treachery he left behind. 

Coming back late that evening he turned at the gate 
to say to Ferd, busy at the hitching-post : 

“It’s just ten minutes to train time, Ferd; maybe 
you wouldn’t mind driving down to the depot for 
Effie. If you are tired, though,” he added, hypocriti- 
cally, “ Maurice can take the phaeton just as well.” 


142 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


But Ferd had already gathered the reins once more 
into his eager hands, and with a little laugh of amuse- 
ment at the doctor’s shallow show of apology, turned 
the horses’ heads in the direction of the station. 

' “It’s well to throw these pleasant little opportunities 
in young folks’ way;” and the old man smiled as he 
recalled the young one’s eager seizure of the opportu- 
nity. “ I’m sure of Ferd. He’s just as far gone as a chap 
needs to be. But the girl ! She’s inscrutable. Abso- 
lutely inscrutable, if she is my own child. She almost 
makes me believe in changelings.” 

He had long since begun to look complacently on 
Ferdinand Cosgrove in the light of a possible son-in- 
law. Nothing, according to his way of thinking, could 
be more suitable. A vision of himself taking a well- 
earned rest in his old age, while Ferd stepped easily 
and naturally into his practice, was a pleasant vision, 
and he conjured it up again on this occasion, as he 
congratulated himself on his bit of harmless maneuver- 
ing. 

Coming into the office half an hour later to re- 
port his failure to find Miss Ambrose at the station, 
Ferd found him sitting at his desk, staring fixedly at 
an open letter in his hand. 

“ Here, Ferd ! ” he said, in a slow, quiet voice, “ read 
that for me.” He held Effie’s letter out in a hand that 
shook as if palsied. “I’ve read it over two or three 
times, but it don’t seem to get any clearer. Maybe 


143 


STRICKEN HEARTS, 

the fault’s in my glasses.” He took off his eye-glasses 
and rubbed them mechanically, while Ferd swept the 
written lines with a surprised glance. 

“Why, it’s from Miss Ambrose, isn’t it?” 

“Yes. Read it! It’s from Miss Ambrose.” 

“ She won’t be at home, then, to-night.” 

“ Read it ! ” 

“ But, my dear sir, she might not ap — ” 

“ Read it ! Read it, boy ! And if there is any 
meaning in it, pick it out and hammer it into this old 
dotard’s head ! ” The old man smote his thin, white 
locks with clenched fist in fierce emphasis of his com- 
mand. “ Read it aloud, but slowly, Ferd ! Perhaps I 
can understand it better then.” 

Startled and Wondering Ferdinand turned his atten- 
tion from the doctor’s passionately excited face to the 
letter in his hand. His own lips grew white and a dark 
flush settled on either cheek as he read : 

“ My Dear Father — Don’t grieve over the step I 
have taken, nor seek to interfere with my most fixed re- 
solve. I believe that the Lord has spoken to me by the 
voice of that saintly woman who was led so providen- 
tially to our doors, led direct of God, I do believe, to bring 
me up out of the miry clay. I have gone with her as 
Ruth went with Naomi, to make her people my people, 
her country my country, her creed my creed, and 
whithersoever she goeth, there also will I go. Under 
her apostolic leadership I hope to lead that higher and 


144 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


better life that can only be attained through the morti- 
fication of our earthly affections, and the sharp pain of 
my separation from you, father, is but one of the many 
stripes I am prepared to endure if I may but be found 
worthy of acceptance at last. The yearning of my 
soul for a broader, higher life than that I have led in 
my lonely self-absorption, (feeling within me a burning 
zeal and boundless energy to be up and doing, with no 
avenue for their exercise open to me,) has been more 
intense and caused me more acute pain than you can 
conceive of. Such a narrow, sordid, useless life, dear 
father, I give up without one sigh for myself, but 
many a tear for you. Tell Ferdinand (I will call 
him so just this once) that it comforts me to think of 
him as with you. I want him to be as a dear son to 
you. If I could have hoped for a patient hearing from 
you, father, I would have explained my desires and 
intentions to you in person, but you would just have 
looked at me with that far away, uncomprehending 
look in your eyes that always makes me feel as if we 
were living in two different spheres, and either have 
laughed at me or stormed at me, 'and I feel too 
unnerved to risk either. As soon as I am settled in my 
new home you shall hear from me, provided you will 
promise not to vex my soul with importunities for me 
to return to the old life of unsatisfying luxury and 
enervating indulgence. Think of me as happy, father, 
and as stepping heavenward. Do not cast one thought 


STRICKEN HEARTS. 


U5 


of reproach toward Mrs. Shaw. She has been but an 
humble instrument in the hands of Divine Providence. 
The scales have fallen from my eyes, father, and seeing 
as I see now, believing as I believe now, it would be 
the worst of weakness, if not criminal, for me to act 
differently. You have not lost your daughter. Think 
of me as gone to school again. Only this time the 
Saints will be my instructors.’’ 

The young man’s voice was husky with a passion that 
made it tremble over the last -few words of this cruel 
letter. He folded it up and methodically replaced it 
in its envelope. What could he say to that stricken 
father to soften its cruelty or cloak the treachery of his 
only child ? What could he say to his own heart on 
behalf of this strangely rash act of the girl who had 
been to him the embodiment of sweet reserve and 
womanly dignity? 

“ Well ? ” 

It was the doctor who uttered it, in such a strained, 
eager voice, and Ferd only echoed the word dully. 

“ Well, sir.” 

“ What does it all mean, Ferd? I don’t seem to be 
able to follow it. I’d think she’d gone off to commit 
suicide if it wasn’t for that sentence about my hearing 
from her! But what did she want to go at all for, 
Ferd? Wasn’t I good to her? Poor little thing, if she’d 
told me she was lonely. I’d have filled the house from 
garret to cellar with people of her own choosing. Don’t 


146 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


she say somewhere there,” pointing his palsied hand at 
the letter in Ferd’s, ‘‘something about loneliness? I 
loved her though, Ferd ; ay boy, that I did, my pretty 
Effie.” 

Two big tears rolled down his furrowed cheeks and 
fell on the shaking hands that were folded on his lap. 
Ferdinand sprang from his chair and walked away to a 
window where he stood staring out on the darkening 
street. The two men wrestled silently with their 
mighty grief. Each heart knew its own bitterness. 
Dr. Ambrose broke the long silence. 

“ Ferd ! come here, son. Have you studied it out 
yet ? ” 

The young Mississippian came to him and leaned 
over the back of his chair. He did not want to look 
him in the face, for he knew that when he spoke it 
would be to add shame to the old man’s grief, wrath to 
his sorrow. 

“ It means, sir, that you have been nursing a viper in 
your bosom and that it has stung you ! ” 

“ A viper ! ” 

It was a roar of rage ! The old man was on his feet 
now and turned upon the speaker his blazing eyes. 
The young one looked at him with infinite pity and 
indulgence as he said : 

“ You don’t think I mean Effie? not Miss Ambrose, 
doctor! ” 

“ Who then ? Curse me if I’ve got one clear idea ! ” 


STRICKEN HEARTS. 


M7 


Ferd opened the letter once more, and pointed with 
his finger to a passage. “ See ! let me read it to you : 
‘ Think of me as gone to school again. Only this time 
the Saints will be my instructors.’ ” 

A shudder passed visibly over Doctor Ambrose’s 
stalwart frame. ‘‘ Then it does mean suicide ! The 
saints ! Oh, my little girl ! ” 

“It means,” said Ferdinand, flinging the letter down 
with an oath, “ that you have had an accursed Mormon 
emissary in your house, and while you were mending 
her bones she was plotting to break your heart. Not 
that she would put it that way ! She knew when she 
looked up in your face this morning so guilelessly that 
she was going to stab you in a vital place before night, 
but her conscience never pricked her once ! She believes 
that she was God-sent to steal your daughter from you, 
and she has infused her own conscienceless infatuation 
into your daughter’s enthusiastic soul, but not one 
throb of compunction stirred her pulses.” 

Dr. Ambrose broke into a sudden loud laugh and 
sank down once more into his chair. 

“Ferd, you are a fool! 1 am a fool ! We’re both 
fools! Infernal fools, Ferd. It’s all right. Oh! yes, 
it’s all right, Ferd.” 

Ferdinand looked at him in anxious alarm. Had 
reason deserted her throne so suddenly? The doctor 
sighed and passed his hand across his forehead with a 
tired gesture. Then went on in a quieter voice : 


148 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“I don’t mean it’s all right, Ferd But you’ve 
relieved me immensely. I never thought of the Mor- 
mons once, but I might have known some nonsense of 
this sort would seize her sooner or later. I see it all 
now, Ferd, but it can’t be permitted, no sir, it can’t 
be permitted. It was a rash and foolish act and a 
daring step to take without consulting me.” 

“ What do you see. Dr. Ambrose? What can’t be 
permitted ? ” 

“ Why you see, Ferd, that child has had a mania for 
reforming the world ever since she’s been in it, almost. 
She was trained by a crank, Ferd. Priscilla was a 
crank about your slaves. If the slaves hadn’t been 
emancipated that would have been Effie’s hobby, too. 
As it is, she’s taken up the Mormon hobby. My pure 
darling, my pretty enthusiast, to think she could grap- 
ple with that monster vice. I’m glad the Quinbys are 
there. She’s gone to see Mrs. Quinby, Ferd. Mrs. 
Quinby was her best girl friend. But she ought to 
have asked me. Maybe I’ve made my girl afraid of 
me, Ferd. I didn’t want to. Oh ! no, no. But men 
are such rough brutes, Ferd. And she was such a shy 
thing. I didn’t quite understand her, but I loved her. 
Oh, my little girl, my little girl ! How could you be 
so foolish ! ” 

Hot tears gushed . from the old man’s eyes in a 
blinding torrent, and his white head dropped heavily 
on the lid of the desk before him. Ferdinand could 


STRICKEN HEARTS. 


149 


stand no more. He could find no words of comfort 
with which to assuage this storm of grief, and his own 
soul was stirred with wrathful emotions. He did not 
believe that Effie had gone forth fired with missionary- 
zeal to rescue others from the horrible pit of Mormon- 
ism. He had heard too much of the baleful fascina- 
tion of these smooth-tongued emissaries who come 
gliding into peaceful and happy homes devil-sent, 
devil-inspired to do the devil’s own bidding, and leave 
them wrecked and ruined forever. How such teach- 
ings could warp souls as pure as Effie Ambrose’s or 
reach minds as exalted, was one of the mysteries he 
could not solve, but that they had done so he accepted 
as a horrible and undeniable fact which must sooner or 
later force itself upon Doctor Ambrose’s comprehen- 
sion and crush the frail cockleshell of hope the poor 
old man had just launched upon the troubled waters. 
He slammed his hat over his eyes and strode toward 
the door. He would choke if he staid there listen- 
ing to that old man’s sobs. He wanted to get out in 
the night air where he could think better than seemed 
possible in there where Effie’s cruel letter lay open on 
the desk and the sound of her father’s anguish smote 
the silence. How long he paced up and down the 
garden walk that flanked the house, chewing fiercely at 
his unlighted cigar, he never knew. Long enough 
to call himself a fool over and over again for 
letting this cold, shy, passionless girl get such quick 


THE BA R. SINIS TER . 


150 

possession of his affections. Long enough to tell him- 
self many times with the rash positivism of disap- 
pointed youth, whose vision is concentrated wholly 
upon its own petty organism, that life was a failure, 
love a delusion, truth a myth ! Long enough to grow 
calmer, finally, and to think very pitifully of the old 
man who was wrestling alone with his sorrow. “ I will 
go back to him ; but I can not comfort him,” he said, 
throwing the cigar he had chewed to a remnant far out 
into the shrubbery and going back into the office. 

The doctor’s chair was vacant. Ferd hoped he had 
gone to bed. He walked softly, as one does involun- 
tarily in the house of mourning, toward the steps 
that led to the upper story. Effie’s alcove was lighted. 
He stopped in front of the portiere. Could she have 
come back suddenly? Seized with remorse had she 
turned back from New York to heal the wounds of 
her own making? No! She was not there. It was 
her father ! He was sitting in the little beribboned chair 
where she always sat, toying with the trifles scattered 
about the table at his elbow, Effie’s belongings, all 
of them. The quaint carved paper knife, and the 
Japanese card-receiver, and the flat dish with violets in 
it. She had gathered them and put them there to 
perfume the room, and then had left the room so 
desolate. But the perfume lingered. 

My little girl ! My little girl ! ” 

The words came with a moaning sound from the old 


STRICKEN HEARTS. 


man’s lips as he took up one trifle or laid down 
another. Ferd crept softly away again. He had 
never crossed that threshold by her permission, he 
would not intrude now. It was sacred to her. There 
she had lived the stainless life that she had cast away 
from her forever under the influence of a diabolical 
infatuation. There her thoughts and reveries had 
been all pure, wjomanly, feverish maybe, and restless, 
and craving she knew not what, but pure ! There she had 
sat enthroned in dainty sovereignty too far away and 
above him, he had thought, for him to weave an 
aspiration about her, much less avow a passion. And 
now ! And now ! He groaned aloud in his pain. He 
wanted to curse, curse loudly, curse deeply, curse the 
smooth-tongued emissary who had beguiled this girl 
whom he loved to her own ruin. Curse the incre- 
dulity that had made them all accept a serpent for a 
good woman ! Curse the weakness of a government 
that could tamely abide such a cancer as Mormonism 
on its body politic ! Curse all the agencies that had 
combined to bow that honest old head, in yonder, 
to the earth with grief and shame ! Curse his own 
impotence to remedy the evil or solace the sufferer ! 
He went to his own room and flung himself dressed as 
he was on the bed. Toward midnight he roused him- 
self from the chilled stupor into which the day’s event 
had thrown him. The doctor was his first thought. 
Surely the old man had found temporary forgetfulness 


152 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


in sleep by this time. He softly descended the steps in 
his slippered feet. The light still burned in Effie’s 
alcove. Her father was moving restlessly and heavily 
about the room now. Ferdinand looked in upon him 
more boldly this time. He must be gotten to bed. 
He was softly pulling down the shades to the bay 
window where the pretty fernery caught the early 
morning sunlight. Then he drew the heavy inner 
curtains from their cords and let them fall in straight, 
graceless folds to the floor. With awkward, trembling 
hands he drew the portieres that opened into the par- 
lor close together, pinning them with clumsy slowness. 
It was a shrouding of the little alcove. And through 
it all came the moaning plaint : 

“ My little girl ! My little girl ! ” 

With a tottering, uncertain gait he crossed the 
threshold of the alcove, softly drew the sliding door 
from its grooves in the wall, locked it and dropped the 
key into his pocket. It was a sealing of Effie’s room. 
Then he turned and discovered Ferdinand standing at 
the foot of the stairs, patiently waiting, fearful of 
intruding upon the sorrow that he shared so largely. 
The old man’s arms went suddenly outward, as if 
reaching for the vanished form so dear to them both. 

“ My little girl ! My little girl ! ” 

A choking sound. A reeling of the massive form. 
A heavy thud. Merciful insensibility. 


CHAPTER XIII. 


MR. QUINBY’S attitude. 

T MEANT to have taken the first train this morn- 
1 ing, Ferd, but here Tve overslept myself! I 
ought to have spoken to Maurice ! Had your breakfast 
yet ? My God ! Tm a log ! Tm turned to stone ! 

Dr. Ambrose turned an agonized look up to where 
Ferdinand Cosgrove stood by his bedside, looking at 
him with a world of anxiety in his eyes. Powerless to 
move his lower limbs he clasped his hands in a par- 
oxysm of despair. “Not paralysis, Ferd ! Don’t tell 
me this treacherous old Fody has failed me just when 
I had such fierce need of all my energies ! ” 

“You have had a slight stroke, doctor, but the 
doctors all think you will recover from it as soon as 
your system is built up a little. I am so — ” 

“The doctors all ! How many have you had here? " 
“As many almost as you number friends. Drs. 
Taylor and — ” 

“ But Taylor’s over in New York ! ” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ How could he get here since midnight ? Oh ! I 
II 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


154 

remember, I remember, Ferd. I remember how, just as 
I was saying to myself, don’t break down, don’t break 
down, you’ve got to go for Effie, I did break down 
before I knew what I was about. Poor boy, you look 
about as bad as can be yourself. Pm afraid I gave you 
a troublesome night. But you needn’t have sent for 
Taylor.” He put his hand up to his chin ! The beard 
of a week’s growth rasped his hand. “ Ferd ! Good God ! 
how long have I been here? How many precious 
hours have I lost? I wanted to get there before her 
pure soul had been contaminated by so much as a 
breath of that sin-laden atmosphere. Ferd ! How long 
have I lain here like a log?” 

His mind was clearly vigorously wide awake at last ! 
There was no object in deceiving him : 

“ Dr. Ambrose, it has been six days since that cruel 
letter came ! If you hope to take any active steps in 
this matter you must be quiet and obedient. Perhaps 
in a week — ” 

“Week! By the eternal, man, what do you think I 
am made of? I must go for her, Ferd ! For Efifie ! 
Don’t you know ! Did you tell Corson ? ” 

“ I have told no one any thing. But all Elizabeth 
knows,” he added bitterly, “ that Miss Ambrose has 
left her home clandestinely, and that Doctor Ambrose 
has had a stroke of paralysis.” 

“ If it was the heart, Ferd, that had turned to stone, 
so much the better ! so much the better. But these 


MR. QUINBY'S ATTITUDE. 155 

accursed treacherous legs, to fail me in my sore 
need.” 

Ferdinand made no answer. Why should he? That 
any good was to be accomplished by Dr. Ambrose 
following his daughter up, he could not see. She was 
of age, and the government under which she had taken 
shelter was mighty to shield and protect all who con- 
fided their safety to its strong arm. But he was not 
going to argue the point with the doctor. In a little 
while he would see this whole thing differently. Not 
calmly, for the worst had not yet penetrated his com- 
prehension. As for himself Efhe’s image was so blurred 
and blotted by her own rash hand that she no 
longer stood for the embodiment of womanly loveliness 
and purity that had won his most^ exalted esteem and 
tenderness. Almost any other form of error he could 
have condoned ! His pity was all for the stricken old 
father who tried so hard to shield his child from reap- 
ing the bitter fruits of her own folly. A somber silence 
fell between the two men. Ferdinand was slowly 
pacing backward and forward between the bed and the 
mantle-piece. Glancing toward the first as he turned 
in his restless tramp, he saw the hot tears forcing 
themselves from under the sick man’s closed lids, and 
slowly coursing down his rugged, furrowed cheeks. 
With the tender impulse of a girl Ferd stooped over 
him and wiped his wet cheeks. 

“ Ferd ! you know — it won’t matter now if I say it. 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


156 

I had hoped, yes, I wanted to hope, Ferd, that you 
and Effie — you love her, don’t you, Ferd ?” he asked 
very eagerly. 

“ I loved her, sir : I think I never loved a woman so 
before.” 

“ Don’t talk as if it were in the past tense, boy ! oh ! 
no ! oh ! no ! we’ll get her back and drive all that mis- 
sionary nonsense out of her head. We mustn’t leave 
her so much alone next time, Ferd. Men are selfish 
brutes, you know. My poor little girl ! My little girl ! ” 

To this Ferdinand had no answer. It was all in the 
past tense. There was no future tense possible for 
him and Effie Ambrose. The doctor called him back 
to his bedside as he walked away from it with the 
slow, heavy tread of an old man. 

“ I want you to telegraph for me, Ferd.” 

“To whom, sir? ” 

“John Quinby, Salt Lake City.” 

Ferdinand took out his paper and pencil and held it 
in readiness for dictation. 

“Just ask him if Miss Ambrose has reached Salt 
Lake City in safety.” 

“But suppose he knows nothing about it? Aren’t 
you advertising Miss Ambrose’s departure unneces- 
sarily?” 

“ You’re right ! you’re right ! But this suspense, boy ! 
This bondage ! I’ll lose my senses under it, if I’m not 
even to know her whereabouts.”. 


MR. Q UINB V’S A TTITUDE. 1 5 7 

“ I might telegraph and ask if he knows a Mrs. Lse- 
titia Shaw.” 

“ Do it ! do it quickly ! And as much more as you 
can ask discreetly, Ferd.” 

So Ferdinand went off to the telegraph office, and in 
the course of several hours returned with the result of 
several different messages : 

“ Mr. Quinby knew Mrs. Shaw well ; she was an 
honored citizen of Salt Lake City. Yes, she had returned, 
and Miss Ambrose with her! Both ladies were in the 
best possible health. Dr. Ambrose might rest assured 
his daughter was with friends.” 

The old man smiled as Ferd read aloud to him these 
gleanings from the wires. It wasn’t much on which to 
satisfy a hungry heart, but when one is resolved to per- 
form the miracle of the loaves and fishes for the benefit of 
a beloved delinquent, satisfaction can be easily procured. 

It was good of* John to send that last message, Ferd. 
He knew I would be perfectly satisfied to know she was 
with him and Anna.” Then with sudden revulsion : — 
“D — n Mrs. Laetitia Shaw! serpent! ingrate! smooth 
faced hypocrite ! ” 

“Dr. Ambrose, all unnecessary excitement only 
retards your activity by so much,” says Ferdinand, 
startled at the frenzied energy of his passion. “ If you 
can not control yourself better you will be a prisoner for 
life, instead of weeks.” 

“ Right ! right ! right ! I’m hurting myself worse 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


than any body else, but oh ! my little girl ! my little 
girl ! ” 

A day passed — two — three, and' Effie’s name had 
not been spoken by either of them. Then the doctor 
said suddenly, “You must write a letter for me, Ferd. ’ 

The hot blood leaped in a flame to the young man’s 
forehead. He could not, would not write to her ! 
“ Well, sir ? ” he said. 

“To John Quinby! I must hear something more, 
Ferd, and I want to make things as right as they 
can be until I get there,” and this was the letter 
young Cosgrove wrote by dictation, interrupted 
every little while by comments wrung from the old 
man’s aching heart : 

“ My dear John — If I had not known you and Anna 
from the time you were children, which makes me feel 
almost as if I had a father’s claim on you, I could not 
bare my wounds for your inspection, but I’m coming to 
you for help, my dear, and I’m quite sure of getting it 
from you both.” (Oh yes, Ferd, I know, even if it 
crowds them a little, they will make room for her.) 
“When your Anna was getting ready to join you in 
Utah, John, I laughingly told her that Effie and I 
would be coming over there to see you some day, for 
I was certain nothing short of a missionary’s life 
somewhere would satisfy my girl’s fantastic desire to 
do something, she wasn’t quite clear what.” (You see, 
Ferd, there’s where the sting comes in ! I believe that 


MR. Q UINB Y'S A TTITUDE. 


159 


infernal clumsy jest set my poor little girl to thinking 
of this very thing). “ I curse the hour when I got off 
that senseless jest, John, and am willing to bear my full 
share of blame for Efihe’s foolishness. And I curse too 
the hour when I opened my doors to that viper, 
Laetitia Shaw. No doubt, it was her unfolding the hor- 
rors of Mormonism to my dear child, that wrought her 
up to the pitch of going out there to grapple with that 
awful vice. What idea or plan of action the poor 
child has gotten into her poor little head, I do not 
know, but you and Anna, I know, will take her into 
your safe and friendly keeping until I can get there. 
That would be immediately if I were able to travel, 
but I am sorry to say I am confined to my bed by a 
slight attack ” (call it slight, Ferd, for he might happen 
to let Efhe see this letter, you know, and I wouldn’t 
have her made uneasy for a trifle) “ brought on by im- 
prudence. No doubt my little one expects to convert 
all the Saints from the error of their ways. Tell her she 
will have to be very expeditious, for I shall be on for 
her very soon.” (You see, Ferd, it’s as well to make 
light of it with a view to sparing her pain. Poor dear, 
I know she’s crushed with remorse and shame, by this 
time. I’m not going to say one word that can be con- 
strued into a reproach.) “ If I could know that she was 
with you and Anna I would feel as well satisfied as 
any thing could make me in my present frame of mind.” 
(You know theQuinbys are just like kin to her, F'erd.) 


i6o 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ Don’t be too hard in your judgment on my poor little 
girl, John, you and Anna and Anthony. A good deal’s 
to be said for the way she’s been reared, and I can’t 
blame myself severely enough for leaving her so much to 
herself since she lost her aunt and then Anna, She was 
reared by a crank whose hobby was abolition. N o doubt 
if the darkeys hadn’t already been emancipated, she 
would have found enough work for her rash head and 
eager hands close at home. As it is she has brooded 
no doubt over the sin of Mormonism until the desire to 
mend matters has carried her clear out of herself 
and away from her poor old father, to do what she ver- 
itably believes is the Lord’s bidding.” (You see I am 
being a little prolix, Ferd, but if I don’t explain 
matters fully she won’t, and they are liable to put 
wrong constructions on her conduct.) “ Tell Anna I rely 
much on her common sense, and she must exert it 
fearlessly to prevent my foolish girl from carrying out 
any of her wild schemes of reformation.” 

Ferd wrote the dictation conscientiously, wondering 
all the while at the power for self-deception that it 
evinced. By dint of obstinately taking one view of 
the matter Dr. Ambrose had reduced his daughter’s 
wrongdoing and his own suffering to a minimum. 

“What do you think of it, Ferd?” he asked, after 
the letter had been read aloud to him. 

“ I think you have tremendous will-power,” said the 
younger man evasively, addressing an envelope. 


MR. Q UINB Y'S A TTITUDE. 1 6 1 

And this is the answer that came back with due 
regard to promptness : 

“ My dear Doctor Ambrose— Mrs. Quinby and I 
were very glad to hear from you and to know that 
there was even an indefinite prospect of our seeing you. 
We had anticipated your wishes by consulting our own 
happiness and robbing our neighbor of your daughter 
as soon as we heard of her being here. Mrs. Quinby, 
as you know, loves her like a sister, and no sooner heard 
of her being in the city than she sent me to insist on 
her becoming our guest. Sent me, I say, for I am 
sorry to say, that in spite of that fund of common 
sense with which you accredit her, she has imported all 
her narrow Eastern prejudices against the institutions 
of this country and refuses to have any thing to do with 
Mrs. Shaw, in spite of much kindness she has shown 
us, since she discovered that Bishop Shaw had other 
wives. So, Miss Ambrose is with us, Mrs. Shaw yield- 
ing gracefully in view of the old friendship and Anna’s 
piteous pleading. She, Mrs. Shaw, is a woman of rare 
tact and intelligence, absolutely fearless in pursuit of 
what she considers her duty. As your lovely daughter 
has been with us but a very little while I have had no 
opportunity to discover what her object in coming 
was, nor what line of conduct she proposes to follow ; 
but I feel confident that she will act judiciously and 
wisely, and rejoice to find her absolutely free from that 
narrowness of soul and contraction of heart that mars 


i 62 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


SO many of our best women reared in the conventional 
schools. Miss Ambrose has utilized her opportunities 
for reflection most admirably, and I find in conversa- 
tion with her that she is a remarkably advanced 
thinker, age and sex considered. I only wish my dear 
Anna was more like her in many respects. No doubt, 
now that she is on the spot, she will be able to decide 
clearly and finally whether to accept the new gospel in 
all its untrammeled excellence, or whether to do feeble 
and ineffectual battle against an institution that has 
withstood the shock of conflict and misconstruction, and 
odium cast upon it by generations of those whose 
prejudices are more nearly allied to blind ignorance 
than to intelligent conviction. The less one knows of 
this institution and its workings, naturally, the harder 
one finds it to exercise reason or tolerance. I have 
gone through the phase myself, and am free to say, that 
the result of patient investigation inclines me to 
leniency. My present attitude toward Mormonism is 
that of a serious and unbiased inquirer. What the 
final result will be I am not prepared to say. I hardly 
think it will be a voluntary resumption of the old prej- 
udices and arrogant sitting in judgment. No doubt you 
are thinking of your daughter as environed by a God- 
less, lustful set who make their religion a cloak for a 
multitude of sins, to breathe the same air with whom 
will stain the pure ermine of her womanly nature. 
Compare a few of their precepts with those of your 


MR. QUINBY'S ATTITUDE. 


163 


orthodox Christian and see if the Saints lose by the 
comparison. I give them to you, as Joseph Smith 
gave them to his disciples and followers. I called them 
precepts. They are in reality articles of faith of the 
Church of the Latter Day Saints. 

“We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His 
Son Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. 

“ We believe that men will be punished for their own 
sins, and not for Adam’s transgression. 

“We believe in the same organization that existed in 
the primitive church, viz: apostles, prophets, pastors, 
teachers, evangelists. 

“ We believe the Bible to be the Word of God, so far 
as it is translated correctly ; we also believe the Book 
of Mormon to be the Word of God. 

“ We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty 
God according to the dictates of our conscience, and 
allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, 
where, or what they may. We believe in being honest, 
true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing 
good to all men. We follow the admonition of Paul. 
We believe all things, we hope all things. If there is 
any thing virtuous, lovely, or of good report, or praise- 
worthy, we seek after these things.” 

Ferdinand’s voice was laden with scornful emphasis 
by the time he reached Mr. Quinby’s peroration, which 
was a virtual indorsement of the precepts he had been 
at such pains to transcribe. 


164 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Curse the fellow!” he muttered, between clenched 
teeth ; “ a pretty wolf to play shepherd to this poor old 
man’s ewe lamb.” But Dr. Ambrose only saw the 
twitching of his long mustache and the angry fire in 
his eyes. 

“ Ferd ! ” His voice was perplexed and troubled. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“ How does that letter of John Quinby’s strike 
you ? ” 

“ As a string of infernal rubbish ! ” 

“ Nothing worse than rubbish, Fer<i ? ” 

“ I don’t see what could be much worse, sir, in such 
a case.” 

“ A defense of Mormonism would.” 

“ I think we’ve got it here, sir. The man who wrote 
this letter is either a fool or ” 

“ John’s no fool — but finish your sentence.” 

“ Or he is about to adopt Mormonism.” 

“ Then God help him ! God help poor Anna ! God 
help us all, Ferd, for the times are indeed out of joint ! ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 


CLASS NO. I. 



HE morning after Mr. Quinby had robbed Mrs. 


X Laetitia Shaw of her ‘‘ pet Iamb,” as she tenderly 
called Effie, found that lady bustling about her pretty 
little house with a very wide-awake air of pleasurable 
anticipation. It was not the bishop’s regular week at 
Elm Cottage (as the pretty little house was called, to 
distinguish it from the bishop’s four other homes), but 
in his anxiety to hear all about the fruits of her trip 
East in the service of the Church, he was anticipating 
a little, and that was the reason she had to bustle 
about, for she had never yet fallen into the reprehen- 
sible habit of making her lord’s homecoming a thing of 
small moment. 

She was a little lonely in these latter days with the 
boys all married off, with wives and homes of their 
own to look after, and the bishop so burdened with 
public and private interests that she felt grateful for 
not being defrauded of her full one-fifth of him, and 
she would greatly have preferred keeping Effie Am- 
brose in her own home forever; but that was a selfish, 
wicked desire which she repressed with all the energy 


i66 


THE BAR-SINJSTER. 


of her well-disciplined soul. Mrs. Shaw never allowed 
her private preferences to outweigh the good of the 
Church, and it was for the good of the Church and 
the glory of God that she labored so zealously to bring 
this pure, refined, intellectual girl within its fold. It 
was meet and proper that she should place her where 
she was likely to fill her mission on earth most satis- 
factorily to all the Saints. So she had given Effie up 
to the importunate demands of the Quinbyswith some 
smiles and tears commingled. 

“You know, Mr. Quinby, she has been a sweet min- 
istering angel to me now for two months. We have 
been together daily, and I hope the companionship has 
been sanctifying to us both.” 

“ I know it has been to me,” Effie had said, clinging 
around the neck of the elderly “Saint,” “ and I’m only 
going to visit Anna for a few days. I love her dearly 
— oh ! so dearly, and the foolish child won’t come to 
me. But under you, dear mother Laetitia, I must take 
my first feeble steps toward the higher, truer life I have 
come here to find. Keep your heart and home open 
for me.” 

“ Always, my darling, always. But remember it is 
under God, not under me, a poor fellow-struggler, that 
those steps are to be taken.” 

“ She has taught me what it is to love and to be 
loved,” says Effie, looking up at her escort with wet, 
solemn eyes as they walk away, leaving Mrs. Shaw 


CLASS NO. I. 


i6j 


watching them from her open door; and John Quinby 
answers with flippant gallantry that is entirely lost on 
the rapt young enthusiast : 

“ I fancy you will not lack for teachers in that branch 
of lore.” 

Well, Eflie was gone, but the bishop was coming. 
Thus sunshine and cloud chased each other. And 
now, at last, she was to have the satisfaction of 
talking it all over wTh the bishop. Dear, dear, 
she hoped he would agree with her as to the 
wisdom of having come back immediately with 
this one choice convert. Effle Ambrose was worth 
a hundred commoner women to the Church ; and 
there were so many dangerous possibilities attending 
delay in this especial instance. John Ambrose himself 
was a creature of such extremely violent possibilities; 
And the child’s resolution might not have endured too 
long a strain. And to have forced the company of 
other and coarser recruits upon her during the journey, 
might have brushed ofT the delicate bloom of that 
enthusiasm that was so rare and so beautiful. Oh ! 
no, it would never have done ! She was quite sure the 
bishop would approve entirely, when he came to hear 
all the particulars. 

So Mrs. Shaw hummed an ancient ditty in a crooning 
voice, as she bound fresh ribbons about the lace cur- 
tains in the parlor, and twitched them into more grace- 
ful folds; and patted the cushions of the big chair 


i68 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


(that no one ever sat in but the bishop), into more 
inviting plumpness; and ordered baked beans for din- 
ner (the bishop would never outgrow his fondness for 
baked-beans — regular Boston baked beans, you know), 
and floating island for dessert. (It lay on Mrs. Shaw’s 
conscience rather heavily, that when Class No. 3 had 
sent to her for directions for making this dessert, so 
dear to their liege’s palate, she had simply sent her the 
cooking book, with a blue pencil mark about ^ the 
recipe, which was not exactly the one she followed.) 
She had so managed it for years now that the bishop’s 
sojourn at Elm Cottage should be marked by a degree 
of calm enjoyment and aesthetic gratification procurable 
nowhere else, and calculated to leave an aroma behind 
it exclusively associated with Class No. i. No occa- 
sionless imposing than his homecoming warranted the 
bringing out of the moss-bud china with the gilt- 
band, and the entire silver service, both a little anti- 
quated now, but of genteel authenticity ; nor the 
temporary displacement of the dusty pampas plumes 
in the big vases on the parlor mantle, to make room 
for costly roses and ferns from the florist’s around the 
corner; nor the dofflng of her muslin cap and the 
donning of her lace one with the blue ribbons. Blue 
went very prettily with her silver white hair, and the 
bishop often declared she was the handsomest of the 
lot yet. 

Well ! There she had him at last ! And, as she sat 


CLASS NO. i. 


169 


opposite him at dinner, extracting much vicarious 
enjoyment from the rapid disappearance of the baked 
beans, she told the story of her wanderings, of her 
accident, of her providential placement in Effie 
Ambrose’s pathway, and of the gradual leading of 
that pure soul to a comprehension and acceptance of 
the teachings of the new gospel, drawing inspiration 
throughout the recital from her husband’s short, quick 
nods, and bland “ Good ! very good ! ” 

“ And you see, my dear, the remarkable coinci- 
dence of these two people, John Quinby and Doctor 
Ambrose’s daughter being brought together here in 
the land of the Saints. Oh ! who can fail to detect a 
higher agency than my poor feeble voice? ” 

“ How ! I don’t exactly catch your drift.” 

Why, this sweet child, almost unknown to herself, 
has cherished a life-long attachment to our handsome 
young neighbor. I’m quite satisfied that if Mr. 
Quinby had not gotten married while she was living 
in Boston, she would have been a very different creat- 
ure, altogether more commonplace, you know. It does 
look, don’t you agree with me, my dear, as if the Lord 
had arranged to secure them the highest earthly good, so 
soon as they showed a willingness to accept Him, as 
He is revealed to and by His Saints. For, if I under- 
stood you right, when I saw you just before I left, Mr. 
Quinby had become an earnest seeker after light?” 
She paused with anxious inquiry in her tones. 

12 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


170 

“Yes! oh, yes. Quinby’s all right — or at least in 
the right road. But about this previous attachment 
business. How did you find all that out? I take it, 
from what you tell me, that this girl is the sort that 
would shy off from any clumsiness or coarseness.” 

“ I hope I am incapable of either,” Mrs. Shaw 
answers with just indignation. “But how can I 
describe the process of turning a child’s heart inside 
out, examining it and then turning it right-side out, 
and move just precisely as one would the fingers of a 
glove.” 

“ Skilled labor, I suppose ! ” says the bishop, divid- 
ing his attention impartially between his wife and the 
floating island, with that diffusion of affection which 
had come easy by long exercise. 

“ Now then ! ” she said, a while later on, when her 
husband was finally installed in the big chair, the pic- 
ture of placid content. “ Let me hear your side of the 
story.” 

The bishop picked his teeth ruminantly for a 
moment or two. She was quite willing to wait until 
the spirit moved him to revelation. They under- 
stood each other so thoroughly well, and they had 
long ago gotten rid of that friction that belongs to the 
impetuous ardor and bungling impatience of youth. 
His most prolonged attacks of silence never discon- 
certed her. Her hands were never empty of some- 
thing in which she could take refuge. A pair of baby 


CLASS NO. I. 


171 


socks to be crocheted gave them occupation now, while 
the bishop ruminated. They were for her eldest son’s 
oldest child. The blue of the big ball of yarn in her 
lap made a bright spot of color on her black silk dress. 
The long ivory needle was scarcely whiter than her long, 
slender fingers. The excitement of telling about her 
trip with its momentous results had flushed her cheeks 
to a rosy tint. Her blue eyes expressed serene joy in 
the happiness of the present moment. Altogether, 
the bishop was inclined to think that the best he got 
out of life, he got at Elm Cottage, and from Class No. i. 

‘‘ Wife Laetitia,” he said impressively, extending a 
gracious hand and laying it on her lap, “you are a 
most satisfactory wife and a pillar of strength to the 
Church! You have done well, exceedingly well. And 
you deserve the commendation of the Saints.” 

“Oh, my dear, no! no! I trust I have been found 
useful, but I am but an humble handmaiden ready and 
willing to do the Master’s bidding as seemeth best to 
Him. I would like very much to hear your views con- 
cerning Mr. Quinby. It is from the ranks of the en- 
lightened and educated that we desire to recruit. He 
would be a most desirable acquisition.” 

“ I am hopeful ! very hopeful! We have had many 
long and satisfactory conferences together. He un- 
doubtedly began the investigations in the spirit of 
scoffing incredulity so common to the unbeliever. But 
I believe he is ready to accept, provided — ” 


172 


THE BAR^SINISTER, 


Provided what, husband ? ” 

That no shock to his extreme fastidiousness should 
be involved.” 

“Then I thank God that I have been able to 
remove the last stumbling-block from his pathway. 
This dear lamb that I have brought into the fold will 
complete the good work already begun, my dear. It 
is plain to be seen that the Lord’s hand is in it.” 

“ Doubt-less ! ” says the bishop, splitting the word 
in two syllables with a protracted yawn, after which 
he sank peacefully into his post-prandial slumber, 
while Mrs. Shaw patiently and gratefully fanned the 
august brow that was all her own to cherish — for a 
little while to come at feast. 


CHAPTER XV. 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 

M rs. Quinby, sitting alone in her pretty library 
some few weeks after Miss Ambrose had become 
her guest, engaged in the unprofitable task of idly 
turning over the leaves of an old photograph album, 
was suddenly reminded that to-morrow was John’s 
birthday, and she was glad of an opportunity to make 
amends to him for some very childish outbursts that 
she had given way to almost involuntarily lately. 
True, her health was some excuse (if there ever was 
an excuse for a woman being perfectly hateful and 
unreasonable, she said to herself, accusingly). But she 
was ashamed and remorseful and lonely, being all of 
which, an old photograph album with its melancholy 
reminders and dismal suggestions of change and loss, 
was any thing but an engaging companion. 

She was ashamed, because in the presence of 
Anthony and Effie Ambrose, the one of whom had 
looked at her with compassionate indulgence, and the 
other with grave surprise, she had that morning 
launched into a fierce and uncalled-for philippic against 
the institution of Mormonism, declaring it pollution 


174 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


to breathe the atmosphere of such a place, and a great 
deal more, stung into expression by the bolder and 
bolder defense of it that her husband was constantly 
setting up of late. She was remorseful, because she 
eagerly . assured herself that she might have known 
John was only saying those awful things to tease her, 
and the more temper she displayed the more teasing 
she was apt to get. 

She was lonely, because John and Effie and Anthony 
had all gone to a concert together, but she had never 
yet achieved that degree of maternal equanimity 
that would enable her to enjoy any thing when baby 
was at home with nobody but Barbara. It is true 
baby had proudly achieved his second birthday anni- 
versary, but he was baby yet. Anthony would have 
staid to let her go. He was always ready to sacrifice 
his pleasure for hers, but she wasn’t attuned to music 
any way on this night, and then — and then, it might 
have looked, you know, as if she were not willing for 
John to take Effie anywhere unless she was along too. 
And, of course, she was willing — quite willing. She 
hoped she did not have one grain of hateful common- 
place jealousy in her, that sort that made a person a 
burden to himself and to every body else ! She was 
glad Effie was with them. Really glad, though she 
couldn’t in the least understand why any pure, good 
woman should come to this vile place voluntarily. She 
never talked about her reason for coming. She never 


THE BLO W DESCENDS, 


175 


talked about her father ! She was the most shut-up 
creature that ever had lived any how. She supposed 
that missionary craze had died out by this time and 
Effie was too much ashamed to allude to it. She sup- 
posed she would go quietly home with her father, when 
he came, and no one would ever drag an expression of 
opinion from her. Whenever the subject of Mormonism 
was introduced, as it had been that morning, Effie’s 
face would become as white as marble and about as 
rigid, and her eyes would glow like furnaces ; but her 
lips preserved a stony composure. She was so terribly 
intense. She would butter a biscuit with such a tragic 
air of earnestness. But on the whole — yes, on the whole 
— she (Anna) was very glad to have her there. 

“ Very, very, very glad ! ” by token of which Mrs. 
Quinby burst into sudden and unaccountable tears, 
bedewing the open album on her lap to the great 
detriment of the first picture of John she had ever 
owned, the one he had given her when they first 
became engaged. The laughing eyes in the picture 
mocked at her silly tears and she dried them with the 
gusty energy that seemed to sway all her movements 
this evening. 

Suddenly Barbara, handsome, stolid, statuesque, 
stood in the doorway, her yellow plaits lying rigidly 
over her bosom on either side of her head, and her 
cold blue eyes flashing furtive scorn at the mistress’s 
weakness. For under the yellow glory of hair in which 


176 


THE BAR^SINISTER, 


Barbara took such pardonable pride, was a very acute 
intelligence, and under the tight white bodice on which 
the plaits reposed was a heart not nearly so sluggish as 
the unthinking thought. She saw, understood, and 
despised every one of those tears. 

“ He don’t seem to breathe quite right,” she said, not 
offering to advance any further than the open door. 

Mrs. Quinby sprang up in anxious alarm. “ He ” 
was the baby. In the two years she had been his 
nurse, Barbara had never been heard to call him any 
thing else. Anna pushed by the girl and sped up stairs 
to the baby’s cradle. This heavy breathing alarmed 
her. A hot fever-flush was on his smooth little cheeks 
and the tiny lips were parted and crimsoned, as he 
panted heavily for breath. What should she do ! Not 
a soul within call but Barbara, and she worse than 
no one ! No one to go for a doctor! Baby might die 
before that terrible concert was over 1 Awful thought 
— suppose he should die with his father at a public 
entertainment ! Help ! Oh ! where should she turn ? 
Mrs. Shaw? She had taken, a solemn oath that no 
Mormon woman should ever cross her threshold with 
her knowledge or consent. Should she keep her oath 
and let her baby die? There was one compromise 
possible. She would send Barbara to ask Mrs. Shaw 
for remedies until a doctor could be procured ! That 
would be an insult ! Barbara was too big a fool to be 
entrusted. A last resource : she must go herself. 


THE BLO W DESCENDS. 


177 


Her voice was strung to a pitch of agonized pleading 
as she asked : “ Barbara, will you watch baby very 

carefully until I run over to Mrs. Shaw’s and tell her 
about him? Mr. Quinby may not be home "for half 
an hour, and we can’t get a doctor before he comes.” 

“ Go ! ” was all the girl said, as she planted herself 
by the crib head. 

“ Don’t try to rouse him, Barbara. There may not be 
much the matter. Maybe it’s only measles. They’re 
not dangerous, you know. But I always get so fright- 
ened.” She stooped and laid her lips to the hot baby 
brow, then with an appealing look at Barbara flew 
down stairs all bareheaded as she was. The opening 
of the front door let in a rush of fresh air, that forced 
her to think of her unprotected head and shoulders. 
A loose raglan of her husband’s hung on the hall rack 
and the little stiff felt hat that Effle wore in her long 
morning walks. She seized and put them both on. 
No one would see her. That part of the town was 
almost deserted after nightfall. Mrs. Shaw’s was just 
diagonally across the corner. What floods of brilliant 
moonlight illumined the earth ! It was almost as 
light as day. The double row of shade-trees that 
bordered both sides of the street cast somber shadows 
earthward, but above was one liquid sea of silver light. 
She almost ran down the steps in her feverish haste to 
get help for her darling, then shrank back in alarm. 
She heard footsteps. Suppose some rude, prowling 


178 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


man should be passing ! She peered cautiously from 
beyond the heavy stone pillar that rose from the lower 
step. These people had already passed. It was a 
man and a woman. They seemed to be sauntering 
rather than walking with a specific object. The woman 
leaned heavily on the man’s arm. Anna emerged boldly 
into the moonlight. Their backs w^ere turned toward 
her now, and both heads bent in earnest conversation. 
She cast a look of idle curiosity toward the retreating 
figures, then stood as one turned to stone. It was 
John — her husband. It was Efifie Ambrose — her 
friend. Like a hunted creature she turned her tortured 
eyes now from them, now toward them. They would 
turn presently and find her watching them. Whatever 
else happened that must not. They would never know 
why she was there, “ spying on them,” they would 
call it. With one bound she was on the street side of 
the tree-box that encircled the thick-bodied elm 
immediately in front of her door. She had no thought 
of her errand. No thought of her baby. No thought 
of her own light slippered feet planted in the wet 
grass that edged the sidewalk. Her one thought was 
to be concealed until they should bring their earnest 
consultation to a close and disappear within doors. 
The end of the block reached, they faced toward her. 
It seemed an eternity before they reached the door 
step in their slow absorption. She could catch their 
voices — catch their words — John’s voice and Effie’s 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


179 


voice. Oh ! monstrous treachery ! Oh ! cruel betrayal 
of her trust ! How distinctly the merciless night air 
gave the tender words and the passion laden tones of 
John’s voice to her startled ears. 

“ I love you, my darling, and God has brought you to 
me almost miraculously. You believe, do you not — ” 

Then the footsteps drowned the voice once more as 
the two sauntered past the house again. The wretched 
wife clung to the slats of the tree-box for support. 
What was it to her that John, her husband, the father 
of her child, was there within reach of her hand, within 
sound of her voice, for her to bid him fetch help for 
their baby? Should she ever call his name again? 
Should she ever again lay her hand on the arm that 
other woman was clinging to now, as she only had a 
right to do ? Would he dare ever to raise his treach- 
erous eyes to her face again? No! no! no! ten 
thousand times no ! They were coming again ! They 
neared her ambush once more! More slowly, with 
lingering reluctance to end what was so sweet, they 
walked toward her again. Again the voices above 
the foot-falls. 

“ Then your heart has laid by its fears. There will 
be no more shrinking?” 

“ None, John ! with God’s help I will be to you a 
true and loving wife, to her a true and loving sister.” 
How calm, how clear, how sweet her voice! 

“ My precious bride ! My own ! ” 


i8o THE BAR-SINISTER. 

Then side by side they mounted the steps and 
passed into their house. “Her home! Her defiled 
home!” she almost shrieked the words aloud in her 
agony. Like a homeless outcast she crept from behind 
the tree-box at last, and dragged herself up the stairs 
like a wounded animal. All recollection of why she 
had come down those steps had faded from her mind. 
She peered timidly through the lace that draped the 
glass of the front door before fitting her latch-key 
into it. What if she should meet them on entering ! 
Her hand trembled like a drunkard’s as she fumbled 
for the key-hole! If she could only get to her room — 
get to baby ! She would wrap him up and fly with 
him ! All fevered as he was she would fly with him. 
It would kill him — it would kill her! All the better — 
the quicker the better! Then John would not have 
to risk his soul to gratify his passion. Bah ! To cloak 
it under the name of religion ! Did God reign and let 
puny man so insult His majesty! She was back in 
her own room. No sound but her own faltering foot- 
steps as she dragged herself back up the stairs had 
disturbed the silence of the darkened house. Barbara 
was asleep at the head of the crib. No matter! She 
stood over her child’s cradle, conscious of nothing but 
the desire to fly with him. She was too tired — strangely 
tired! She was tottering now — she did not believe she 
could hold him. No matter — she would be rested by 
daybreak, then they could fly — Tony would help her 


T/f£ BLOW DESCENDS. i8i 

get away with baby ! The fever flush had deepened, 
and the poor little head was tossing from side to side ! 
No matter ! She could get a doctor now for the asking. 
John was in the next room. He did not like to sleep 
in the room with baby of late. He said a man that 
had to work all day didn’t want to be disturbed of 
nights. Ah ! well, they wouldn’t disturb him. She 
did not touch the tiny sufferer with hand or lip. “ It 
might chill you, you know, darling ! Mother is turned 
to ice!” No matter! She walked slowly away from 
the cradle toward the fireplace. A few coals were 
smoldering yet in the grate ! She dropped on the rug 
in exhaustion, and clasping her hands about her knees, 
fastened her burning eyes upon the smoldering coals. 
The fire in the grate would die out presently, and 
leave nothing but gray cold ashes in its stead ! Gray 
cold ashes every where — gray cold ashes in her heart — 
gray cold ashes in her home — the world all turned 
to gray cold ashes ! Hope — love — truth — purity — 
honesty, all turned to gray cold ashes! No matter! 
Nothing mattered! She heard the clock strike twelve 
and one and two ! She shivered with cold ! No matter! 

Barbara, cramped and uncomfortable in her chair, 
roused herself with a start, and gazed guiltily about 
her. How long had she slept? There was the lamp 
burning low. The fire had gone out ! The mistress 
sitting with clasped hands and wide strained eyes on 
the hearth, gazing fixedly into the cold black grate. 


i 82 


THE BAR^SINISTER. 


The girl bent over the sick baby’s crib. Its breath 
came in gasping moans ! She stole softly over to the 
silent watcher on the hearth. The dim lamp-light 
showed her the wide-open eyes. 

“ He don’t seem no better,” she said, in what was a 
pitying voice for her. 

No matter ! ” 

The strange answer made Barbara stare ! Then she 
straightened herself from her stooping posture, and 
said brutally, as she walked toward the door : 

“ If it don’t matter to you. I’m sure it don’t to me,” 
and went away to conclude the night in comfort. 

The clock struck three — and four — and five! She 
did not hear it ! She did not feel the pain of her own 
miserable body ! She did not hear the writhing contor- 
tions of the little forsaken one over yonder in the crib, 
as convulsion after convulsion seized the tiny form, 
with no pitying hand near to wipe the white froth from 
the poor, purpled lips, nor the drops of anguish and ex- 
haustion from the clammy little forehead ! The cold 
gray light of morning sent its first pallid ray through 
the unshuttered window — she took no note of it 1 
There was a rustling as of the wind through leafless 
trees! She did not feel it ! She did not know when 
the angels of love and pity entered that cold, dark 
chamber, and spreading their wings tenderly over the 
cradle of her first-born, whispered to him, “ When thy 
father and mother forsake thee, then the Lord will 


THE BLOW DESCENDS. 


183 


take thee up,” and bearing the pure little soul aloft on 
their pinions left her bereaved indeed ! The world 
awoke to a new day. No matter ! There was nothing 
in it for her ! There was a strange confusion of feet 
and voices all about her ! She was lifted in strong 
arms — they were his arms ! She shuddered and 
wrenched herself free — she heard his voice saying that 
their baby was dead — she heard him heaping re- 
proaches on her for not summoning him. No matter ! 

She tottered toward the cradle where the little cold, 
still form lay. So beautiful and peaceful is death — so 
hideous and cruel is life. How good the angels had 
been to her baby ! They asked her some meaningless 
questions, some expression of her wishes was demand- 
ed. She turned stonily away from the cradle. Did 
she understand ? Yes ; she understood all they were 
saying, but no matter ! She went away from them and 
locked herself in with God ! 


CHAPTER XVI. 


COMFORT AND MERCY. 


ND then the devils of discord, distrust, hatred and 



jealousy entered in and took possession of that 
home. And before very long there came an hour 
when, up-stairs, wan of face, broken of spirit, rebel- 
liously accusing God of having forgotten the world of 
his own creation, lay a wife awaiting the hour of wo- 
man’s sorest travail with no voice but that of a hireling 
to bid her be of good cheer. God seemed too far off 
for His tender promises of help in the hour of need to 
reach her ; while down stairs a husband, torn with con- 
flicting emotions of pity and anger and anxiety, sullenly 
awaited the hour when he could decently force upon 
the victim of his ruthless treachery the subject of his 
unalterable decision to be sealed to a second wife. 

Two weeks had passed since their little Abbott had 
been laid away in the Gentile cemetery, and John 
Quinby had so far been unable to gain admittance to 
his wife’s presence. Anthony, his tender heart sur- 
charged with grief for them both, had been a patient 
but unsuccessful mediator between them. Through 


COM FOR T A ND MERC Y. 1 85 

him Mr. Quinby learned how his wife had become pre- 
maturely informed of his monstrous intentions. 
Through him Anna had sent the defiant message that 
forbade him her presence. “Tell him,” she had said, 
“ to send me word that he has repented of his sin and I 
will forgive it and try to forget it, though it has cost 
me my darling’s life. If he can not or will not, tell him 
never to ask me to look upon his face again. I will go 
back to my mother as soon as I can gather strength to 
leave my bed ! Go back and leave him free to wreck 
another woman’s life ; ” which despairing utterance had 
only made Mr. Quinby’s.lip curl with bitter scorn as he 
answered: “Tell her, that I will never do. I do not 
repent of what she is pleased to call my sin. I pur- 
pose carrying out my promise to Miss Ambrose as 
soon, as it can be done with decent regard for my re- 
cent bereavement. And as for her threat to return 
East, that depends. If the child we are looking for 
shall survive the tragic performances of its mother, she 
will have to take the choice of giving it up and return- 
ing East alone, or remaining to accept the conditions of 
wifehood and motherhood as God Himself has imposed 
them upon her. That is my ultimatum.” 

And thus matters had stood ever since. She, bruised, 
brooding over her wrongs, shrinking from the tender- 
est touch ! He, quiescent with a sullen masterfulness; 
irritable and defiant of opposition ! Anthony, in whose 
crippled body a knightly soul found lodgment, torn 

13 


i86 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


with righteous wrath against the brother between 
whom and himself had always existed more than a full 
measure of brotherly love, and yet yearning with in- 
finite pity over the shattered happiness of their little 
home circle ! While across the way, safe under the 
shelter of Mrs. Shaw’s brooding wing, drinking in 
comfort from those well-disciplined lips, Effie Am- 
brose, the pure victim of an unholy hallucination, 
bided her time, serene in the conviction that she was 
doing her duty by accepting the lot appointed her as 
a vessel chosen to honor, patiently awaiting the sac- 
rificial hour ! 

Opposite each other, as they had sat through so 
many happy, peaceful hours of companionship in the 
old Elizabeth home, John and Anthony Quinby smoked 
their cigars, now with only an outer semblance of the old 
inner peace. They were both vaguely conscious that 
the tangled destinies of three lives lay infolded in the 
grasp of an unborn child ! The quietness of a suspense 
that would admit of no pretense had held them spell- 
bound for a long time. Anthony breaks the spell : 

“John, if I should allow cowardice to seal my lips 
to-night may I never hope for happiness on earth nor 
forgiveness in heaven,” he says with startling abrupt- 
ness. 

“You were never counted a coward, Tony,” the 
younger brother answers with a disarming smile, “ you 
used to fight my battles and your own too.” 


COMFORT AND MERCY. 


187 


“ Don’t try to soften my mood, John ! I want to be 
merciless ! It is your battle I’m aiming to fight now, 
John.” 

That’s well meant of you. But don’t you think 
I’m perhaps quite able to fight my own now ? I might ac- 
cept of you as an ally but hardly as a champion ! ” 

Not when you have the devil for an adversary and 
he has his citadel in your own heart,” says Anthony, 
answering the question and ignoring the proffered 
truce. 

“ You claim to wield weapons then against so formid- 
able a foe ? ” John asked, looking across at his brother 
with a mocking laugh. But his light shafts of ridicule 
glanced harmlessly from the strong armor of fierce 
earnestness in which his brother had arrayed himself to 
do battle against the powers of evil. 

J ohn, I am to be deterred from my purpose by neither 
flattery nor ridicule. Things have got to a point 
where silence is criminal. I command you to pause and 
ask yourself what will be the end of this monstrous step 
that you propose taking? You are piling up such a heri- 
tage of woe and misery for your posterity that I stand ap- 
palled at the audacity of the act. I will not plead for 
Anna. Poor child ! her happiness is already a wreck 
and her heart broken. I do not plead for you ; you 
well deserve the full bitterness of the cup your own 
hand has flavored. I do not plead for myself ; what 
becomes of me is neither here nor there. Nor, do I 


i88 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


ask one thing for that infatuated girl, who has helped 
you make a wreck of your own home, after breaking 
the heart of the noblest old man who ever suffered for 
a fool’s folly. You and she deserve all that ” 

“ Stop ! not one word touching Effie ! Confine your 
abuse, if your tongue must wag, to me. But leave 
that pure, sweet woman’s conduct to be judged by One 
who sees not as man sees. But bear this in mind, 
Anthony. Even you may go too far.” 

Anthony’s face had grown deadly white, and then 
purpled with passion during this short speech. 

“ No ! I can not go too far, John,” he said, as soon 
as he was sure of his voice. “You were once a gen- 
tleman. It was the recollection of that time that im- 
pelled you just now to shield Miss Ambrose’s name. 
Your conscience has made a coward of you ! It was 
cowardice that furnished you with that taunt, that 
falls blunted and pointless. You shall listen to me 
to-night, even if your wrath makes a Cain of you. I 
should like to compel you to answer me some ques- 
tions." That I suppose I can not do?” He paused 
expectant. 

“ As many as you please,” said John, writhing with 
remorse for the taunt he had flung at the brother whose 
helpless condition should have made him sacred. 
“ Forgive me my boorishness.” 

“ When did you first become interested in the ac- 
cursed institution of Mormonism ? ” 


COMFORT AND MERCY, 


189 

“ Don’t ask conundrums ! I’m not prepared to 
answer them. I have had my eyes and ears open 
ever since I have been living here. I believe it to be 
the part of common sense to divest one’s self of all prej- 
udice that springs exclusively from ignorance. I 
seriously determined, long ago, to investigate this 
thing called Mormonism. In my business relations I 
have been thrown in direct contact with many of the 
leading minds of this community. We all know that 
for the past twenty-eight years the question of Mor- 
monism has been a factor in American politics.” 

“ Say rather,” Anthony interrupted with fierce 
energy, “ we all know, that, for more than twenty- 
eight years, Mormonism has been the bar-sinister on 
the ’scutcheon of State ! ” 

John shrugged his shoulders derisively and went on. 
“ So, naturally, as a man of some intelligent curiosity, 
I applied myself to the task of solving my own doubts 
concerning its evil influence and corrupting ten- 
dency.” 

“ Well,” says Anthony, impatient of this meager 
admission. 

“ Well ! I did not propose to enter on a defense of 
Mormonism, nor on a defense of myself. I thought 
you had the floor to-night. It is safe for you to con- 
clude from the -position I have lately assumed, and 
mean to maintain, that I, at least, have found nothing 
evil or corrupting in that influence.” 


190 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


'‘No, sir, by Heaven, it is not safe to conclude that ! 
It is safe to conclude, that having settled here and 
found your greed of money-making growing with what 
it feeds on, you propose to stay where success, worldly 
success, marks every effort you make ! It is safe to con- 
clude that an unholy passion has overtaken you, when 
you were so situated that you could gratify it without 
making yourself amenable to the law, and that you pro- 
pose to do so. You may deceive that self-deluded 
girl, John ! You may deceive the corrupt and infatu- 
ated creatures about you, who license debauchery and 
legalize lust! You may even try to deceive yourself, 
but you can not deceive me! You can not deceive 
God ! You can not deceive that heart-broken wife up 
stairs ! ” 

The younger man rose to his feet with blanched 
cheeks and eyes that glowed with murderous passion. 
He made one step forward ! then his clenched fist fell 
powerless by his side ! Anthony’s eyes never left his 
face, and his voice was absolutely under control when 
he said : — 

“You may strike, John, and strike to kill, but hear 
me out first you shall. Until eighteen months ago, 
when I brought your wife and son on here, I knew 
absolutely nothing about Mormonism. I knew, of 
course, that it existed to the everlasting shame of the 
United States Government. I knew, that, as far back 
as ’56, slavery and polygamy were coupled, theoreti- 


COM FOR T AND MERCY, 1 9 1 

cally as twin relics of barbarism. I offered my life 
freely to help abolish the one and I would gladly, ay, 
only God knows how gladly, I would offer up this poor 
remnant of a body to help crush out the other. I 
knew that it was a cancer gnawing at the life of the 
nation. I knew, in the abstract, that it had wrought 
misery for thousands of men and women ; but what I 
did not know, John, was that it was possessed of a 
diabolical subtlety, and a devilish sophism that could 
pervert a man’s whole moral and mental organism, and 
make him see things as right, which in his normal con- 
dition, he wduld pronounce as black as hell itself ! 
Your own case — you were a man of reason — you were 
a man with a nice sense of honor- — you were a kind 
husband once and an affectionate brother!” 

“Personal abuse is not argument ! Confine yourself 
to the text ! ” J ohn’s voice was coarsely resentful. He 
writhed under this lashing, but the mad impulse to 
punish Anthony for his freedom of speech had passed 
away forever with that one threatening gesture. 

“Perverted indeed must your nature be, John, when 
you can say you see nothing ‘ evil in its influence,’ nor 
‘corrupting in its tendency.’ It was founded in cor- 
ruption and nourished by men’s most evil passions. 
Its pathway, from the hour of its inception up to the 
present one of its giant growth, has been marked by 
inhumanities, butcheries, and abominations of every 
stripe. It has taught that murder can be committed 


192 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


to advance the cause of the Church, and that its fol- 
lowers may lie in its defense ! 

“ And how a man reared in a Christian land in an en- 
lightened age whose chief glory is the exaltation of its 
women, can bow to the body and soul-debasing teachings 
of this infernal sect, passes my comprehension ! Woman 
nature in Utah is woman nature the world over. Do 
you believe that one in one thousand of the women 
that have been forced into this accursed mode of life, 
are other than utterly wretched? Your own case 
again ! You say, th^t if the child we are looking for 
lives, its mother — poor little Anna, I wish she had died, 
John, before you ever crossed her path !— must take 
her choice of giving it up, or clinging to it and to you 
too. You will lay this hard alternative upon her when 
her heart is torn and smarting from the loss of her 
darling son. It requires no prophet to tell how she 
will decide. The mother instinct is the strongest in 
her nature. Your brutal ultimatum, backed up by yet 
more brutal laws, will give you the victory, a victory 
that I wish you joy of — a victory of wrong over 
right — a victory of man’s brutality over woman’s 
helplessness — a victory of malice over misery! John, 
you were a mere boy when the civil war broke out, but 
I have seen your cheek flush and your eyes flash fire 
over the wrongs of the down-trodden slaves of the 
South, — you, who are lending the strength of 5rour 
matured manhood to enslave the women of your own 


COMFORT AND MERCY, 


193 


race in a bitterer, more degrading, more soul-consum- 
ing bondage than ever a Southern black groaned under ! 
And that, too — God of power and justice, how canst 
Thou permit such things! — in the name and under the 
cloak of religion ! Bah ! my soul sickens at it all/’ 

He leaned back in his chair white and trembling, and 
passed his hand across his forehead with a despairing 
gesture. 

“ Have you finished ? ” his brother asked with a 
sneering laugh. 

Not quite, John. I have this one thing more to 
say.” 

John leaned insolently back in his chair, stretched 
his limbs leisurely and lighted a fresh cigar, saying : 

“At least you will acquit me of impatience, I hope.” 

“ I want to ask you, John, to turn back before it is 
too late. Let us go back to the States, brother, you 
and poor little Anna and I, before it is too late ! Let 
us go back to the dear old home in Elizabeth where we 
were all so happy together and take up the sweet old 
placid life before it is too late ! Women are so forgiv- 
ing, John. Anna will come to thank God for taking 
little Abbott away from her if it was the means of mak- 
ing you stop to think. You’ll get rich fast enough 
over there, John. Let me go to Miss Ambrose for 
you — ” 

“ Stop ! once more let me warn you that even you 
may go too far. Now then, since you have been so 


194 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


flattering as to allude to my ‘ brutal ultimatum/ let me 
give you another ultimatum, which you are at liberty to 
classify as you please. Not one word that you have 
said, or can ever think to say, will in anyway affect my 
unalterable decision to live my life to suit myself. A 
few days will decide the case between Mrs. Quinby and 
myself. If you will recognize that I am the master of 
my own affairs, my own house and my own family, all 
the bosh you have talked to-night will be forgotten, 
and we will be, what we always have been, the very 
best of friends and brothers. I have been uncom- 
monly patient with you, Tony, during your long 
tirade, recognizing, above every thing else, that you 
meant well. But such evenings as this wouldn’t bear 
repeating, in fact, must never be repeated. Whether 
Mrs. Quinby remains here or goes East you are always 
welcome to a home with me. You can decide at your 
leisure.” 

And Anthony knew, without taking leisure to decide, 
that if Anna staid he would stay too ; for whom had 
she on earth beside him to lean upon in those dark 
days of her soul’s travail — those days so terrible for 
them all ? 

And even while he pleaded with his brother yet once 
more to listen to the voice of honor and duty and 
reason, above them, in the darkened chamber, where 
Anna had kept herself and her anguish shut away from 
earthly eyes ever since the night of her little Abbott’s 


COMFORT AND MERCY. 


195 


death, the ‘‘wise-woman” who was her sole attendant 
bent to tell her that two more little souls had entered 
upon their earthly pilgrimage! Two baby girls were 
waiting for her to take up once more the ministry of 
motherhood ! Two little hearts, waiting to warm her 
own chilled one back into life and love and gladness! 
Two tiny mortals, consigned to her to make or mar 
with wise skill or clumsy unskill. Two tiny ambas- 
sadors fresh from the realms of light, bringing mes- 
sages of tenderness and mercy from the Chastener ! And 
she opened every portal of her soul to give them ingress ! 

“ Call one Comfort and the other Mercy ! ” she said, 
a smile of ineffable sweetness lighting her wan face ; 
and then she closed her eyes for very weakness, leaving 
the wise-woman to ponder what manner of woman this 
could be, who could fasten such remnants of puritanic 
nomenclature upon two innocent babies. 


CHAPTER XVII. 


THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. 

HEN the venerable physician who had been Mrs. 



vv Quinby’s almost daily attendant for six weeks 
came to pay her his final visit, he held her wasted hand 
in both his own for a silent moment and then asked : 

“ My dear, have you a father? ” 

“ No ! ” with a quick, dry sob. 

Perhaps a mother whom you do not care to burden 
with a sorrow she can not heal.” 

“ I expect to- see her very soon. I have only been 
waiting for your permission to undertake the journey.” 

“ Physically, you will be able in a few more weeks.” 

She looked at him inquiringly if not resentfully. 
What right had he to emphasize the word physically, 
as if he knew of other impediments to her freedom of 
action? Did he know? Did all the city know ? Her 
wan face flushed crimson. Poor child ! she did not 
know that her heart, all bruised and bleeding with its 
man-made wounds, had been to his long practiced eye 
no more than an open tablet, blurred and blotted but 
easily deciphered. Twenty years of medical practice 


THE DEDICATION OF A LIFE. 197 

in Salt Lake City had made him wise in the sorrowful 
lore of aching hearts, ruined lives, darkened homes, and 
broken ties. The sullen reserve of the husband down 
stairs and the absence of all wifely eagerness on her 
part to have him share her anxieties or her rejoicing, had 
told him in the first days of his ministration that the 
tragedy so common in that fatal atmosphere was being 
enacted afresh in the home of the Quinbys, and his 
tender heart was full of sympathy for the woman who 
bore her great burden with such pathetic dignity. 

“ Then perhaps, my dear,” he went on, his great soul 
illumining his benevolent face, “ you will let an old man 
say a few words not strictly within the line of his pro- 
fessional duty.” 

She nodded her assent ; unshed tears swam in her 
eyes and swelled in her heart and choked her voice. 

“ It is best to have it out, my child ! Sometimes 
when we force the suffering that is crushing pur soul 
into the very dust to our lips, it brings relief in an 
unexpected shape. Some ray of light may stream into 
the darkened chambers of the heart, through a window 
accidentally opened ! Some chance word may pierce 
the armor of the adversary where we least suspected a 
vulnerable spot. But come what may, try-to think that 
God never lays a burden on us too heavy to be borne. 
Try to believe that earth has no sorrows that heaven 
can not heal. Try with all the might of your soul to 
say ‘ His will be done.’ ” 


198 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ Consenting to suffer will not annul the suffering, 
doctor.” 

“True, true, true! you have been good to let me 
speak so to you and I thank you.” And it was after 
this talk that Anna had asked her brother-in-law to tell 
her husband that she would see him that evening. 
John Quinby blanched to the very lips when the mes- 
sage was delivered, and the hand that was holding his 
after-dinner coffee cup trembled visibly. Anthony 
looked eagerly into his brother’s handsome face, its 
beauty marred of late by a moody unrest in striking 
contrast to the genial good humor of his old expres- 
sion. Perhaps that blanching of his face and the 
tremor in his hand indicated a faltering in his head- 
long race to ruin. John interpreted that anxious look 
of inquiry correctly and answered it with one of such 
flashing defiance that Tony silently cursed himself for 
a fool in hoping for any loop-hole of escape for them 
all. 

Since that long and stormy interview that had 
resulted in nothing but heartburnings all around, the 
subject of their domestic affairs had never been in- 
truded between the brothers. Both consciously looked 
at each other and held constrained intercourse with 
each other over a stone wall of partition, that only one 
of them was powerless to demolish, and he would not. 

When Anna heard her husband’s quick foot-fall — that 
in the olden days had been of itself enough to set her 


THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 


99 


pulse bounding joyfully — approaching the door so long 
forbidden him, all the blood in her veins seemed to 
rush in one red current to her pallid cheeks, deserting 
them as suddenly and settling in a full, palpitating flood 
about her strained and aching heart. 

She sat quite motionless as he came toward her 
with outstretched hand and a brave show of the old 
eager love in his splendid eyes. She looked so inex- 
pressibly lovely with her pretty yellow hair gathered 
loosely behind her small, delicate ears, her large blue 
eyes fastened upon him with a passion of longing in 
their tender depths, and her sweet lips quivering as he 
had seen them quiver many a time under a hasty word 
from him, that he could kiss into such quick oblivion. 
He stretched out his arms with an imploring gesture 
now. He wanted to gather her into them ; he wanted 
her to rest her poor tired head on his bosom as she 
had once loved so well to do ! He wanted to talk to 
her about the little son that had gone away from them, 
and the little daughters that had come to comfort. 
They had wept over the one and rejoiced over the 
others apart. That was not as it should be ! The 
little grave in the Gentile cemetery was theirs in com- 
mon ! The baby girls (who by his command were 
brought to him every morning in the library before he 
went to his office), with their quaint names and appeal- 
ing helplessness, were theirs in common. Their tears 
of sorrow for the one and their smiles of welcome for 


200 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


the others should commingle. He said to himself, and 
wanted to say to her, that she had never been dearer to 
him than at that moment. But beyond that first be- 
traying glance o'" hungry desire (that by a stupendous 
exercise of will-power, marvelous in such a fragile-look- 
ing thing, had suddenly petrified in stony impassive- 
ness) he might as well have been in the presence of a 
marble statue for all response he won. He stopped in 
front of her. His arms fell heavily to his sides. He 
extended his hand formally ; her own remained tightly 
clasped about each other. He flushed crimson, laughed 
awkwardly, sat abruptly down in the nearest chair, and 
asked petulantly : 

“ Haven’t you a word for me, Anna, after banishing 
me your presence for more than a month ? ’Pon honor, 
if I’m entitled to nothing else I am to your thanks for 
my docile obedience. I am sorry to find you looking 
so thin. You must not let the little girls consume 
you. I want to see you plump and rosy once more.” 

“What for? Why do you want to see me ‘plump 
and rosy once more,’ John ?” She made the common- 
place inquiry with tragic earnestness. She leaned for- 
ward with breathless eagerness to catch his response. 
Perhaps he had come to make it all right — to tell her 
she should once more enter her kingdom in undisputed 
sovereignty. Perhaps he was going to roll away the 
stone that was crushing out her heart’s life! 

“‘What fori’ Upon my soul you ask queer qucs- 


THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 


201 


tions. I want to see you plump and rosy, because I 
dont want to see you scraggy and pallid. I’m not 
partial to scrawny wives.” 

Wives ! 

She flinched at this use of the plural, which had been 
entirely inadvertent on his part. He heard the short, 
quick gasp of pain ; saw the sudden pallor of death 
sweep over the sweet, worn face, and yet kept on his 
way relentlessly. He would let the word stand for an 
opening wedge to the understanding he and she must 
come to before he left the room. There was always 
this source of comfort open to him : the more 
tragically a woman took any trouble at first the more 
complete was her final surrender to a will stronger than 
her own, whether it was of God or man. He wondered 
if she was purposely leaving the line of attack with 
him. Was it tactics or confusion that kept her so 
mute when he had expected a tornado of reproach ? 
These dumbly resistant women were the most difficult 
of all to cope with. 

“You have selected a most unbecoming style of 
morning dress,” he said, assuming an easy marital tone, 
when the necessity to say something pressed him im- 
peratively. “You know I dislike black off the street. 
I hope you don’t mean it for mourning! I disapprove 
of ‘ putting on black ’ for any one, but for so young a 
child as our little Abbott ” 

“ I did not put it on for Abbott ! ” 

* 14 


202 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


There was no faltering of her voice over her lost 
darling’s name, though it was the first time it had 
passed her lips since she gave him up. Her baby’s 
death seemed like a mere summer-cloud that had been 
chased out of sight by the swift rising storm whose 
reverberating thunders and lurid lightnings had shaken 
her soul to its very depths. 

Did not put it on for Abbott ! For whom then ? ” 
‘‘ For the husband I lost on the same night ! I shall 
never wear any thing else.” 

“What infernal nonsense you are talking!” 

He sprang angrily from his chair, and with his hands 
thrust far down into his trowser pockets strode savagely 
backward and forward. 

“ Is it nonsense, John ? Oh, prove it to me, and let 
me help you call me ‘ fool, fool, poor self-deluded fool ! ’ 
Prove to me that my place in my husband’s heart has 
not been usurped ! Prove to me that my home has not 
been defiled ! Prove to me that my husband has not 
made wreck of his honor and my happiness at one fell 
swoop ! Prove to me that the sweet supremacy of 
my wifehood has not been tampered with ! ” 

“ I can not prove to you, Anna, that your place in 
your husband’s heart has never been usurped, unless 
you will take my simple word of honor, dear, that you 
were never more precious to me than you are at this 
moment. As your home never has been in the past, 
nor ever will in the future risk defilement through act 


THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 203 

of mine, your second exhortation is meaningless. As 
for the wreck of my honor and your happiness, so 
long as the anchor of mutual affection holds good, we 
need fear no storms nor rocks! ” So speciously were 
his words chosen that a sudden glow suffused the poor 
chilled heart of the wife only too eager to piece together 
the shattered idol and cement it with her penitent 
tears. ‘‘As for supremacy — a man’s first wife here, you 
know, Anna, is, by right of priority, in a certain sense 
always supreme.” 

She rose majestically to her feet. With one hand 
pressed against her heart as if to still the pain that 
threatened to snap the strained cords in twain, she 
pointed to the door. 

“ Go ! I was weak enough to believe you incapable 
of persistence in so mad a scheme ! I was weak 
enough to think that you and I, who have been so 
happy in the past that we might well have been joined 
by God’s own hand — could not be put asunder by man 
or devil I I was weak enough to hope that you could 
and would yet ward off the fatal necessity you have 
laid upon me. Words are so absolutely useless 
between us, that I don’t see why I stand here string- 
ing the senseless, impotent sounds together. But I 
want never in the future for it to be possible that 
cither one of us should be able to say there was a mis- 
take. A mistake now, John, would be the worst of 
crimes. Your position, as I understand it ? ” 


204 


THE BAR-SINtSTER. 


She paused for him to define it ! It was as if roy- 
alty waited for guilt to plead why sentence should not 
be parsed upon it! . He took refuge in brutal direct- 
ness : 

“ My position is that of a recent convert to the 
tenets of the new gospel, a discussion of which it is not 
necessary for us to enter into. My intention is to go 
through the Endowment House with Miss Ambrose 
this day week. I said that it was not necessary for me 
to enter into a discussion of the tenets I have recently 
given my allegiance to ; but it is necessary to give you 
one by way of showing you your own duty, as clearly 
defined by the great Law-giver : * It is the duty of 
every woman to give other wives to her husband, even 
as Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, but if she refuse 
them it shall be lawful for the husband to take them 
without her consent, and she shall be destroyed for her 
disobedience.’ ” 

Anna’s lips had twitched convulsively while he was 
speaking and her teeth chattered audibly. She looked 
at him a moment after he ceased, then asked slowly: 

“ Do you believe that to be a Divine command?’' 

“ I am no theologian ! I have neither time nor incli- 
nation to sift the Book of Mormon through the fine- 
wired sieve of prejudiced criticism. When I accepted 
the new gospel, .1 accepted it in its entirety, and I am 
willing to be guided by its teachings.” 

“ Even when it teaches you to trample under foot 


THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 


205 


all that is best in your own nature — all that is pure in 
woman’s nature — all that is true and good and beau- 
tiful in life ! Even when it teaches you to make a 
mock of virtue and a scoff of chastity! ” 

“ When it does all that it will be time to enter upon 
its defense. I believe we were agreed that our individ- 
ual positions should be defined beyond the possibility 
of any mistake in the future. I hope I have made 
mine quite clear.” 

“Yes, quite clear, quite clear — oh, so hideously 
clear, that the marvel is we can stand one moment 
longer in each other’s presence, John, looking at each 
other with the same eyes, talking to each other with 
the same voices, that served once to woo us forward 
to this dreadful hour.” 

She sank back among the cushions white and ex- 
hausted. 

He got up to go away from her. They had both 
stood all they could stand for one time. She under- 
stood him. She raised a detaining hand imperatively. 

“ Stop I It does not end here, John.” 

He resumed his seat with sullen acquiescence. Pres- 
ently she began, in a low, intense voice that vibrated 
with the ground-swell of her mighty passion : 

“ My position is that of a betrayed woman, a sup- 
planted wife! I have not one word of reproach for the 
woman who has helped you work this woe for all of 
us, for, if it was in you to do this thing, I care not who 


2o6 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


your partner in guilt may be. I ask nothing from 
your hands, in future, but the means to take me back 
to my own home. I will go back there and take up my 
broken life, and make of it whatever God, my God, 
—not the false ijdol you and your paramour have set 
aloft, and bow before with lying lips and sin-stained 
hearts — shall bid me make of it. I will take my babies 
and go away from you and leave you as free as the air, 
John — ay, free to marry a hundred wives, if that be 
your lustful ambition. I will go away and dedicate 
the remainder of my days — may God in his mercy make 
them few in number — to stamping out this foul blot on 
our country’s fair fame ! I will go back and tell them 
that they who say Mormonism is not a curse, lie ! 
That they who say it does not brutalize both men and 
women, lie ! That they who say women accept it as 
a Divine command and live placid lives under it, lie ! 
I will go back and tell them that those who say the 
devils themselves are not purer and better than these 
western Saints, lie ! ” 

Like a pythoness aroused, she stood before him with 
crest erect and eyes darting flames of righteous wrath 
upon the man who had sworn to love and to cherish 
her, and, forsaking all others, to cleave only unto her 
until death did them part. 

“All this and more you can do,” he answered, never 
once faltering in his evil purpose, “so soon as you 
see fit.” 


THE DEDICA TION OF A LIFE. 


207 


“ And when,” she turned and pointed toward the 
crib where on one pillow nestled two little golden 
heads, when they grow older and they shall ask me 
to tell them of their father, as children will, you know, 
John, what shall I say to them?” 

They will never have to take me at your valua- 
tion.” 

“ How? What do you mean ?” 

“ They will learn to know me by daily association 
with me. You can not take my children with you.” 

In the cruel emphasis laid upon that little word of 
two letters he condensed all the law and the gospel. 

“ Have you the right?” 

“ I have both the right and the might.” 

“And will exercise it?” 

“ Most unflinchingly.” 

With the cry of a hunted animal she sprang past 
him, and spreading her arms over the cradle that held 
her sleeping babes, sank slowly to her knees. Her 
head dropped upon the pillow by theirs. A long flut- 
tering sigh escaped her tortured lips, and then she 
sank to the floor insensible. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


TWO CLOUDS. 

I T is a fatal sign when a man finds it necessary to be 
perpetually assuring himself that he is quite satis- 
fied with any course he has entered upon without the 
entire approval of his own conscience. And John 
Quinby found himself involved in this species of 
moral combat at the very moment when he was pre- 
paring to extract the fullest amount of satisfaction 
from the storied sweetness of his second honeymoon. 

And yet it would have been hard for a superficial 
observer to have pointed to one thing amiss in the 
pretty cottage (mercifully aloof from the spot where 
Anna brooded over her wrongs in sullen acceptance of 
her burden) to which he had carried his new wife 
direct from' the Endowment House. 

Certainly a man’s most artistic cravings must be 
satisfied with the display of unerring taste and dis- 
ciplined refinement that entered into every detail of 
Effie’s home-keeping, making of the cottage a veritable 
house beautiful. Carrying the intenseness that was 
part of her very being, into the placing of a chair or 
the draping of a window curtain, she aimed to make 
the humblest means subserve the most exalted ends. 


TWO CLOUDS. 


209 


It was a perpetual ministry of mind unto matter, 
and she would arrange a dish of flowers for the break- 
fast table, or pin a carnation to her husband’s coat 
lapel with the sweet solemnity of a priestess perform- 
ing her vows. 

Now, while Iphegenia, ministering in the spacious 
realms of Barbary, or Aphrodite in her temple, seen 
through the mythological mists of the centuries, may 
be pleasing objects of contemplation, a priestess 
behind one’s own tea-tray is another and less agreeable 
subject for consideration, and a man must be in a far 
more highly etherealized condition mentally and 
morally than Mr. Quinby was, to exist comfortably in 
such a rarefied atmosphere. 

But as the possession of a second wife was, in itself, 
a somewhat uncommon condition for the new made 
convert, he supposed it would be rather jarring on the 
sensibilities to have the conditions of their daily life 
any more commonplace than they already were. 
There was no danger of the fatal element of disgust 
attending upon satiety in the presence of a woman 
like his wife Effie. So, perhaps, things were about as 
well as could be, and he was quite satisfied with his 
experiment — would not undo it if he could. While 
she, thoroughly and humanly in love with her hand- 
some husband, hoping to find in him an active and 
able coadjutor in all the good work she was laying out 
to do among the degraded women about her, saw 


210 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


nothing amiss, recognized but two clouds in her serene 
skies. 

“You know, dear,” she said in one of the many 
harangues on the subject to which she invited Mr. 
Quinby’s languid attention, “ to whom much is given 
much will be expected. I have been so peculiarly 
blessed in the mental conditions that have environed 
my own searching after the truth and the light, that I 
feel constrained to return it in some shape or other to 
my less fortunate sisters. So many of these poor 
women about us, John, are laboring either under a 
total misapprehension of the sacrificial nature of such 
a sealing as ours, or are content to close their eyes 
entirely to the beauty of the celestial marriage by 
remaining unsealed, thereby incurring the doom of 
perpetual servitude in this world and the next.” * 

“ I must protest, Efifie, against your mixing yourself 
up with outside matters too freely,” says Mr. Quinby, 
with aristocratic Gentile repugnance to a too demo- 
cratic saintliness. Then, seeing the swift shadows of 
sorrowful surprise settling about the face that for him 
had such a wonderful fascination, he drew her down 
upon his knee to ask : 

“ You are not unhappy, my wife, are you ?” 

“ No, oh no, John ! Perfectly, perfectly happy! and 


* The Mormons hold that the unmarried or unsealed are doomed to 
perform the service of menials for all time to come. 


TIVO CLOUDS. 


2II 


yet — " The tears never started to Effie’s eyes in the im- 
pulsive fashion that they flood ordinary eyes. In her 
most anguished moments, there came only into them 
a look of pain that pierced the heart of others as no 
tears possibly could. This look rested on her hus- 
band’s face in that moment of hesitation. 

“ And yet what, my St. Cecilia?” It was a pretty 
nick-name he had given her in the early days of their 
renewed acquaintance. 

“And yet, John, if I did not believe I was being 
persecuted for righteousness’ sake, as the martyrs of 
old were persecuted for their faith, father’s silence and 
Anna’s cold estrangement would break my heart.” 

John Quinby gathered her close to his passionate, 
guilty heart with an impulse of remorseful pity. So 
pure and yet so stained, as the world of unbelievers 
held. 

“ My darling,” he whispered, “ you know they do not 
see as we see; do not believe as we believe. You 
must not let thoughts of them darken our home or 
cast one shadow over this dear face. Your own con- 
science and my deathless love, Effic, must be your 
sole dependence through this earthly ordeal.” 

“ Oh no, John. That were poor dependence, indeed ! 
Broken reeds, dear, empty cisterns ! I look higher for 
something to lean on, my husband,” and then, with a 
rapt look that seemed to place an infinitude of space 
between them, she added in low, soft tones : “ At my 


212 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

first answer no man stood with me, but all men forsook 
me : I pray God that it may not be laid to their 
charge ! ” 

“Yes, oh yes, certainly, I know,” says John with 
vague acquiescence in the propriety of her flight or 
the impregnability of her position. 

“ But,” she added, coming back to him and the earth, 
“nothing can make me indifferent to the estrangement 
of the two over whom my heart yearns so, John. 1 
had hoped father would .send me one kind word in 
answer to my last letter. I have written three and not 
one word of reply of any sort! I want him to come 
here, to live with us, John. He is getting old so fast, 
and Tm afraid he does miss me ; but then he did 
without me all the years I lived in Boston. Do you 
think maybe he is going to come, and means to surprise 
me, John? ” 

He muttered something vague in reply. He could 
not tell her that three letters had come for her from 
Elizabeth, one after the other, each one couching in 
yet stronger terms than its predecessor a father’s bitter 
malediction on the man who had sullied her life, and 
containing his wrathful resolve to tear her from her 
husband’s house dead or alive, even if he had to fire 
“ Satan’s stronghold ” with his own hand, palsied as it 
was by her cruel act of desertion. He had received 
the letters at his office and had destroyed them as sub- 
versive of the peace of his own household. He simply 


TIVO CLOUDS. 


213 


exercised his marital rights in protecting Effie from the 
ravings of a madman. He did not tell her that he 
liad received a more recent one written by Ferdinand 
Cosgrove, who told him that upon him developed the sad 
duty of informing Dr. Ambrose’s daughter that her 
father’s mind was seriously impaired and that fears of his 
losing it entirely were entertained by the attending phy- 
sicians, unless he could be relieved of the terrible anxiety 
concerning her, and that, therefore, he (Ferdinand Cos- 
grove) respectfully submitted the matter to him (Mr. 
John Quinby) as the soi-disant legal protector of Dr. 
Ambrose’s daughter, hoping that her return to the 
States might be the result.” 

This letter threw him into such a paroxysm of rage 
that he answered it in a few insolent sentences : — 

“ Mr. Quinby could not spare time to accompany 
his wife. Dr. Ambrose’s daughter, to the States, and 
was not willing for her to undertake so long a journey 
unaccompanied. He regretted extremely to hear of 
his old friend’s sad condition and would recommend 
Mr. Cosgrove (his attendant he presumed) to start for 
Utah with him immediately, where, surrounded by his 
old friends and ministered to by his daughter, doubt- 
less he would soon be quite himself again.” 

And there the matter was resting, so far as he knew. 

But at the other end of the line Ferdinand Cosgrove 
was making active preparations to follow the insolent 
advice given, not with a view of handing the helpless 


214 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


old man over to the guardianship of the Saints, but 
because the physicians said that there was no hope of 
any change unless he could see his daughter’s face once 
more. Once let him do that, and he would be either 
restored or reduced to that stage of positive insanity 
that would render the course to be pursued with him 
sure beyond fear of error. 

“ If he recovers ? ” Ferdinand asked. 

‘‘ He will be strong enough to grapple with a legion 
of devils.” 

If not?” 

“ An asylum ! ” 


CHAPTER XIX. 


IN DURANCE VILE. 

A NNA Quinby did not settle into an attitude of 

^ dumb acceptance of her lot as made and marred 
by her husband, without a fierce resistance that only 
yielded when she was convinced that nothing could 
come of a longer struggle against the monstrous social 
organism that made might right, and vice virtue. She 
had gone to Anthony first with her anguish and her 
perplexities. 

“ Anthony, has the father of my children a right to 
prevent my taking them away with me out of the foul 
contamination of this place?” (She was never again 
heard to call her husband any thing but the father of 
her children.) 

‘‘Under the accursed laws of this territory he has.” 

“ But if I should steal away with them, Tony — steal 
away some night, you know, as the slaves used to steal 
away under cover of darkness, from a bondage so much 
lighter than mine, Tony ! You would help me, wouldn’t 
you, brother ? ” 

“With all the strength of this poor shattered body, 


2i6 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Anna, with the very best drop of blood in my veins — 
if there was any hope of your success.” 

“ Hope of my success! Why should you doubt it ? 
I have plenty of solitude, Tony,” she said with a bitter, 
mirthless laugh, “in which to mature my plans; we 
might be gone days before he would know it.” 

“ Poor child, how very much mistaken you are ! 
You have not drained this cup to its bitterest dregs 
yet, Anna. Ah ! I curse the day when John ever crossed 
your path, and I will help you ; but, unless you are 
prepared to give up your children, cease struggling 
against the inevitable.” Great sobs shook his frame as 
he walked abruptly away. 

“But I don’t in the least understand you,” she said, 
looking after him with grave wonderment. Under the 
severest trial of his nerves she had never seen Anthony 
give way in this helpless fashion before. 

“ It is hard lines for us all, Anna,” he said, coming 
back to her with a calmer exterior. “ It is repugnant 
to me to stay in a man’s house and play informer. If 
I did not think that by staying I could ameliorate 
your hard lot in a measure, I would go this moment, 
dear.” 

“Oh no, oh no,- don’t go, Tony;” her soft eyes 
swam in tears as she held both hands pleadingly 
toward him. 

“ I am not thinking of it. But I want you to know, 
Anna, that you are under strict surveillance all the 


IN DURANCE VILE, 


217 


time, and any attempt to escape with your children 
would only end in defeat and added indignity.” 

“ Surveillance ! I ! How dare he ? ” 

“ He dares any thing, now, Anna : it is only the 
first step in wrong-doing that a man of honor falters 
over. That once taken, each successive downward 
step comes easier. I think my brother had hoped t > 
find you more tractable. Your course (the only one open 
to you as a true woman) has inflamed his imperious 
temper. He would have preferred retailing your 
affection. That gone, it is simply a question of mas- 
tery with him. I forewarned him that I should not 
leave you in ignorance of the fact that the woman 
whom he put here as head nurse over Barbara is 
nothing more nor less than a spy on your every action. 
He anticipated your desire to take the children away 
without his knowledge. This was his way of prevent- 
ing it. She would report your first step to him.” 

She stared at him incredulously a long second. The 
new nurse had been so gentle and deferential and 
altogether satisfactory, that she had numbered her 
among the few sources of satisfaction left her. 

“ How dare he ? ” she said again, crimsoning to the 
roots of her hair with indignation. “ I will dismiss 
her this very moment.” She sprang from her chair to 
execute the threat. 

A pitying smile played about his lips, but his eyes 
glowed with an answering indignation. 

15 


THE BAR.S/NISTER. 


2rS 

“ Poor little bird, beating its heart out against its 
prison bars, so uselessly, Anna, so uselessly ! You 
are only unfitting yourself, sister, to take care of little 
Comfort and Mercy ! You will dismiss this woman 
only to have a less endurable one put in her place.” 

“Then I am to live my daily life under the vile 
espionage of a Mormon spy ! My pure little darlings 
are to be cradled in Mormon arms ! Oh, Anthony, is 
there no way out of it ? Must I endure this ignominy.^ 
Is there no way out of it ? ” 

“ Only one, that I can see.” 

“And that?” 

“ Is to give your voluntary promise that you will 
make no effort to escape with your children.” 

“ And that is your way out of it ? ” 

“No! but that is your only hope of relief from 
espionage. Perhaps God will show us some way out 
of it, Anna, but mortal eye can not pierce the black 
veil now. May I tell John you need no — may I say 
you will stay?” 

And so John Quinby scored one more triumph ! 
And yet, when he came as a conqueror to the fireside 
where he had once been lovingly acknowledged as a 
tower of strength, and a very present help in time of 
need, his victor’s crown sat uneasily on his brow, and 
for all the joy it brought him might have been a 
veritable crown of thorns woven by the hand of Nemesis. 
As perhaps it was, who knows? 


IN DURANCE VILE, 


219 


“ You are grown quite a literary character of late,” 
he said, on one of these uncomfortable occasions. “ I 
find you writing every time I come, and if I did not I 
think I could tell in other ways that you were becom- 
ing absorbed in literary pursuits.” He glanced slight- 
ingly at the plain black dress with its carelessly tied 
black scarf and crumpled crape collar. 

I am collecting some statistics,” she said, “ that I 
may find useful some day. I have not grown literary. 
I have neither talent nor inclination for original compo- 
sition. Life is such a fiercely earnest thing and its 
colors so somber, that I feel like laughing the novel 
writer's task to scorn. Why should people waste time 
writing or reading about imagined woes or manufac- 
tured tragedies ? ” 

Having cast her dart with direct aim, she bent again 
over the portable desk in her lap. She made no effort 
at entertaining her visiting husband. She was his 
bond-slave, and she performed all her duties as a slave 
in a passionless, perfunctory manner that blessed 
neither the doer nor the receiver. He would have 
hailed with delight the'most violent outburst of temper 
or reproach. But none ever came. Anthony and he 
talked and smoked through the dull evenings, and 
dallying with his pretty babies brightened a few 
moments at a time for him ; but master as he was he 
could not command one smile to the lips of his unfor- 
giving wife, nor win one glance of love. 


220 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Pon honor,” he said, after a long silence in which 
the scratching of her pen had become audible, “ you 
are growing shockingly indifferent to your personal 
appearance, Anna. It is bad enough to find you 
always in that hideous black dress, but your hair, such 
pretty hair as you have, too, is as frowzy as a kitchen 
maids.” 

“ I must be a little more particular,” she said, caress- 
ing the head of little Mercy as it lay within reach of 
her hand on the sofa, “ as soon as these pretty ones 
begin to notice such things. I don’t want them to 
underrate the beauty of neatness.” 

“Then I suppose my wishes on the subject are not 
to be taken into consideration at all,” he flashed 
angrily. 

“Decidedly not,” she said, with that calm look of 
defiance that always made him feel the impassablencss 
of the gulf himself had digged between them and 
that had served to shorten his visits to her materially. 

“ I, too, have a little curiosity, Anna,” said Anthony 
on this particular occasion, when Mr. Quinby had taken 
his departure sullenly, “concerning your absorbing writ- 
ing. I am quite sure that you know my interest is not 
idle curiosity.” 

“ I haven’t the slightest objection to telling you. I 
have dedicated my life to the exposure of the domes- 
tic misery and absolute degradation existing among 
the women of this city. If, by my persistent efforts 


IN DURANCE VILE. 


221 


and patient compilation of facts, I can throw one ray 
of the light of truth upon this loathsome institution, I 
will feel that perhaps my own sufferings have borne 
fruits worthy of the Master s acceptance. Who knows, 
brother ? it may be part of God’s plan that my heart 
should be pierced that others might be spared. But 
even should nothing come of it, it gives me an occupa- 
tion that fills full the dreadful joyless days of my life. 
My darlings are so healthy and so good that I have too 
much leisure. And, oh ! the worse than emptiness of 
the hours when I look back or forward, Tony ! I must 
work ! and into this work I can throw all the heartiness 
that’s left to me. See,” she added, turning excitedly 
to her desk and selecting some penciled slips. “ I 
have but just begun this work of visiting among the 
Mormon women, whom I find quite ready to talk to 
me. You know I enjoy an enviable position in their 
estimation as wife No. i of the rich Mr. Quinby!” 
(Oh ! the flashing scorn of eye and lip ! ) “ No, I have 

no difficulty in getting the poor things to talk to me. 
It would tire you to read all that I have gathered in 
the way of personal evidence, so I will give you one 
day’s gleanings only. It is only the strongest points in 
each conversation that I have taken down, otherwise my 
proposed expose might swell to the proportions of an 
unabridged dictionary. 

In one home (God save the mark) I found a brow- 
beaten, wretched creature trying to run her sewing- 


222 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


machine with a sick baby across her knees. She is one 
of a batch of seven — bah ! ' My husband tells me,’ she 
said, ‘that I need not expect love from him. It was 
sufficient honor to bear children to the Saints; but I 
sometimes think, if this is all the honor and happiness 
that’s to come to me and it ’ (then she gathered her 
poor little mite of a baby to her bosom, Tony), ‘ it 
wouldn’t be very much of a sin to dash its brains out 
against the wall yonder, and then to follow it out of 
the world. Only I’m scared of the hereafter!’ At 
another place, Tony, I found seven women living 
together in one room, the wives of one man, whom 
they support by their united labor. They had one 
bond in common besides their husband — that was, their 
common degradation ! But so besotted with ignorance 
were they that it frightened them to have me cast any 
doubt upon the divine origin of this hideous dogma of 
polygamy ! One poor, half-crazed girl I found, who 
firmly believes that she has been sealed to Achilles, by 
proxy, and that the children she shall bear to the man 
called her husband in this world, will really be the off- 
spring of that Greek hero ! She is a devout believer in 
the celestial marriage, but admits that if it were not 
for the sacrificial nature of her bond here on earth she 
would sink beneath the burden of her existence. So 
far, I have found but one woman who will say in so 
many words that she likes the institution, and she is a 
low virago, who, with no appetite above the brutes of 


IN DURANCE VILE. 


223 


the field, is glad of assistance in her labors. Oh, 
Anthony, I could go on for hours torturing your ears 
with the revelations I have gathered in these homes 
where bestial lust masquerades as marital affection, and 
the glibness with which its advocates will quote you 
scripture for authority makes one pause in shuddering 
wonder at God’s marvelous patience. But I must 
work — must work hard and fast and unceasingly. I 
.count every moment lost that is not spent on this com- 
pilation ; and when I have gathered enough, Anthony, 
and have strung the black facts on a single strong 
string of statement, just enough to hold them together, 
your part of the work will begin.” 

“ Mine ? ” 

He had followed her with minute attention. He 
could understand how, in her sore and morbid frame 
of mind, she might well derive satisfaction from this 
dreary occupation. But what had he to do with it 
all? 

“Yes, yours! When I get my facts into book shape 
you will take them to the States, Tony. You are not 
a prisoner, you know, and you will publish them, and 
the world will know how women suffer here and drag 
their chains about with them in helplessness. And 
men’s pulses must be stirred to break their bondage as 
they were just a little while ago, Anthony, to break the 
chains of those other slaves down South ; and Mormon- 
ism will come to be known for what it is as a hellish 


224 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


device for the destruction of women, bodies and souls. 
And good men will rally under Christian standards to 
stamp it out, and I shall be free to go away with my 
babies, where I may never again have to look upon the 
face of the man who has broken my heart, Tony, 
broken it — broken it — broken it ! 

A passion of sobs took possession of her and shook 
her frail form convulsively, and Anthony wept with 
her. 


CHAPTER XX. 


FACE TO FACE. 


RRIVED in Salt Lake City with his helpless 



charge Ferdinand Cosgrove found himself envi- 
roned with difficulties. He had hoped that the jour- 
ney through a new and attractive region might arouse 
the old man from what seemed more like settled mel- 
ancholia than any other phase of dementia. His 
recovery from the paralytic stroke had been only par- 
tial. He could walk, but it was with the slow, uncer- 
tain step of a very old and feeble man. His impres- 
sions of new faces and new places were vague and fleet- 
ing. His childish prattle was all of things and people 
belonging to his well-spent, vigorous past. His one 
desire was for Effie — always Effie. 

And now they were breathing the same air with 
Effie. Perhaps she was but a few blocks away from 
the hotel he had selected, and how was he to bring 
about the interview between the father and daughter 
that meant so much to them both ? He had no desire 
whatever to spare her one single pang. All his solici- 
tude was for Dr. Ambrose, It was not hard to find 


226 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


the pretty little cottage that they told him was Mrs. 
Effie Quinby’s home. He walked by the house irres- 
olutely three or four times on the opposite side of the 
street. He almost hoped she might discover him and 
come forward of her own accord and make his hard 
task easier. But the lace curtains at the front windows 
hung unmoved and the door remained inhospitably 
closed. A well-formed, handsome-faced man, coming 
from the business quarter, brushed past him, crossed 
over and entered the gate, feeling in his pocket for his 
latch-key, probably, thought Ferdinand, who stood 
watching him as he mounted the steps. But the key 
was not needed. The door opened noiselessly from 
within, and Effie, lovelier than ever, with a certain 
roundness of outline and glow of happiness that had 
only come to her of late, stood waiting to be folded in 
her husband’s arms. Then they turned away and went 
in, he with his arm around her slender waist, and 
closed the door behind them. The man on the other 
side of the street ground his heel fiercely into the brick 
pavement as he turned and walked rapidly out of sight. 
He went back to the hotel, his course resolved upon. 
He would make no effort to soften the shock her 
father’s sad condition would be to this most unnatural 
daughter. It was useless to confer with the doctor and 
he would not confer with John Quinby. He would 
simply dispatch a card to Effie telling her that her 
father was at the Clift House. Then they might come 


FAC£ TO FACE. 


227 


together as they chose. No harm could come to the 
doctor. He wished he could wash his hands of this 
whole affair, but he felt in honor bound to stand by the 
old man who had come out to him with such whole- 
souled sympathy and kindness, when little over a year 
ago, he had come North, a heart-sick stranger, bent on 
building up the war-shattered fortunes of his house. 

Mr. Quinby’s noonday stay at home was always 
short. The business of Ford, Farnham & Co. was grow- 
ing in his hands to mammoth proportions, and he had 
come lately to feel that his happiest moments were 
those he spent in his office, where life was reduced to a 
question of facts and figures, and no problems more 
harassing than the balancing of a ledger or the prov- 
ing of a day-book confronted him. So he had already 
gone back to his business place when the hotel mes- 
senger put into Mrs. Quinby’s hand an envelope which 
she tore open with nervous haste. There was no one 
to write to her now but father, and he had been 
cruelly silent. A card with the Clift House imprint 
was all it contained. These words were penciled on 
it: 

“ Your father is at the Clift House. He would be 
glad to see you if you will come to him. His room 
is 20. “ F. Cosgrove.” 

The messenger stood stolidly waiting for a reply. 

“ Papa must be very angry yet,” she thought, “ to 
let Ferdinand write for him, and to make me go to 


22S 


THE EAE-SINISTEE. 


him. But he will not be after I have talked to him. 
Wait,” she said to the stolid messenger. “You must 
show me the way to the Clift House. I shall not keep 
you waiting long.” She came back to him presently, 
bonneted and gloved, and set off at once at a brisk 
pace. 

Ferdinand’s room connected with the doctor’s. He 
would not stay to see Effie. He would try to prepare 
her father and then go away and leave them to make 
what they could of the interview. There was one 
chance in a thousand, he thought, that any good would 
come of this meeting. 

“I saw your daughter this morning, sir,” he began 
in that slow, distinct manner necessary now to enchain 
the poor, wandering mind. 

“Effie? Yes, my daughter Effie. She’s a sweet 
girl, Effie is, but a little queer. Don’t speak of it out 

of the house, Ferd, but ” and here the old man’s 

palsied hand tapped his own forehead significantly, “ it 
was all Priscilla’s fault ; Priscilla was a crank, you 
know, and ” 

“ I think she will probably be here to see you this 
afternoon, doctor.” 

No one ever waited for the doctor to finish his sen- 
tences now. He would ramble on inconsequently for 
a wearisome time. But his rugged face beamed with 
pleasure at Ferd’s last words. 

“ Coming, is she ? Effie coming to see me ? That’s 


FACJS TO FACE. 


229 


good. You know she went away a long time ago to 
become a missionary among the Mormons, Ferd. She 
was always a little visionary and wanting to do some- 
thing out of the common, but ” 

“ It will not be necessary for me to stay with you, 
sir. I am going to leave you now, and your daughter 
will come very soon, I expect,” says Ferd, with an in- 
terruption that the doctor does not resent. 

“Yes, oh yes. Effie will come. She’s a good 
daughter, Ferd. I knew she would come back to me, 
oh yes.” 

“You won’t leave the room, you know, sir, for she 
wouldn’t know where to find you.” 

“Oh no, here I am.” The poor, palsied hands 
clutched the arms of his chair with exaggerated show 
of patience, while a glimmer of the old ready fun flick- 
ered in the eyes that were raised to Ferd’s face. “ I 
shan’t budge. I’ll just keep saying, Effie’s coming, 
Efifie’s coming ! ” 

And so Ferd left him, crooning the words to himself, 
and went away to avoid meeting the woman who had 
at one time been scarcely less dear to him than she 
was yet to that doting old man in the chair. He put 
only the closed door of his own room between them, for 
in case the interview produced too violent an effect on 
the doctor, he must be within call. 

In uncontrollable agitation he walked the floor with 
bowed head and hands clasped close together behind 


230 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


his back. He was conscious of three sensations, which 
served at times to blot out all thoughts of his own 
plans in the past or hopes in the future : Pity for Doc- 
tor Ambrose, withering contempt for Efhe, and a mur- 
derous desire to deprive John Quinby of the life he 
was leading to such evil purpose. “ Bah ! ” he said, in 
a paroxysm of self-disgust, “ I would throw away all 
hope of helping those pure, sweet girls down South, 
struggling so bravely with adversity, for the sake of 
revenge that would promptly be punished in this sanc- 
tified region by hanging. She’s not worth it.” 

He stopped involuntarily as the outer door of the 
next room was opened and closed again quickly. She 
had come. He heard her call her father’s name with 
eager pleasure once, then again in tones of startled sur- 
prise. He heard through the thin partition the plaint- 
ive moan that had become so sadly familiar to him of 
late, fraught now with the pathetic eagerness of the 
father’s welcome. 

“ My little girl ! My little girl ! ” It was followed 
by a cry of pain in a woman’s voice. Then a heavy 
fall and — silence ! 

The next moment found him on his knees by Effie’s 
side, as she lay white and pulseless on the sofa where 
he had laid her, gathering her tenderly in his arms 
from the floor where he had found her at her father’s 
feet unconscious. The old man tottered after him 
as he bore her to the sofa by the open window. 


/^ACE TO FACE. 


231 


the unchecked tears streaming down his furrowed 
cheeks. 

“She fell all in a heap, Ferd, before I could catch 
her. I don’t seem to be very strong lately. I expect 
she’s been working too hard among the Mormons, you 
know. My daughter’s a missionary, you know, Ferd. 
It’s just a faint ! Cut her stay-laces and give her air ! 
Don’t be alarmed, Ferd! Her mother used to swoon 
just as easily. There’s sal-volatile at her belt. She 
never went without her bottle. It was my command. 
Effie was always an obedient child until she got this 
missionary craze on her. It’s all Priscilla’s fault. Pris- 
cilla was a crank. Don’t get agitated, Ferd, she’ll 
come round presently and then we must start right 
home with her. This place don’t suit her.’’ 

“ Ah ! if they only could ! If they only could ! ’’ 

It was only the senseless babble of an old man gone 
daft from grief — but if they only could ! If they could 
only gather her up to their aching hearts, father and 
lover, in a burst of forgiveness, divine in its fullness, and 
carry her back to the home she had made desolate ! 
How beautiful she looked in her helplessness, utterly 
dependent on him ; him, he thought with fierce joy, 
for ministration. At last he had held her in his arms — 
she had lain there unresisting ! If she would only die 
in that swoon — if she might never again open her 
eyes upon a sin-stained world — if she might never 
again return to the consciousness of her own degrada- 


232 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


tion ! He heard the old man babbling on unceasingly, 
now giving directions and calling for remedies and re- 
assuring his fears, with a ring of the old professional 
decision in his voice, now crooning loving words as he 
hovered tenderly over the prostrate form, with trem- 
bling hands that only marred their own good intentions. 
He watched the soft bosom rise and fall with the re- 
turn of consciousness. Not yet, not yet! With 
consciousness would come back sin ! She would get 
up and go away presently, back to him ! Where was 
all the bitter wrath he had been nursing against this 
fair fanatic all these months ! Why was it that he 
could see in her now, as she lay there with white lips 
and sealed lids, nothing but a broken lily, that . he 
wanted to take up with healing intent ! She would 
never again touch his life as nearly. He would gladly 
prolong the sweet bitterness of those moments. A 
long, shuddering sigh — a sudden up-lifting of her white 
eyelids — a look of wondering inquiry into his face, as 
he still kneeled by her side. Then, with a smile of in- 
effable sadness she put her hand into his and held by 
it until she had lifted herself into a sitting posture. 

“You have been very good to father! But, oh! 
you should have told me, you should have told me ! 
It was cruel to let the shock of Jiis illness come upon 
me unprepared.” 

She reached up both hands and drew the old man to 
her side on the sofa. With her arms around his neck 


FACE TO FACE. 


233 


and her cheek laid against his rugged one, she poured 
out a torrent of remorseful affection. 

“He must have been very sick; hasn’t he, Mr. Cos- 
grove? He seemed so weak, and even now his hands 
tremble so. Oh, papa ! you ought to have made them 
write to me.” 

So, after all, the hard task of explanation was thrust 
upon him, Ferd thought, with a soul full of bitter- 
ness. 

“ Have you heard nothing at all of your father’s 
condition, Miss — ” The difficulty of addressing her 
overcame him with confusion. 

“ Mrs. Quinby,” she said, with simple directness and 
a steady glance, that meant to say, “ I understand 
your position and you must understand mine.” It 
had the effect of steeling his heart and lightening his 
hard task. For Mrs. Quinby he felt no pity. 

He moved slightly away and stood looking down 
upon her with folded arms and eyes full of merciless 
decision. 

“You have not then received the four letters written 
you, giving you in detail an account of the havoc you 
have wrought there?” His glance fell on her father, 
as he sat by her on the sofa, caressing her hands and 
smiling broadly in the fullness of his content. 

“No! Notone. Havoc! Papa is only unstrung by 
this meeting. I know him of old ; you do not. 

Strong agitation always made him wordless. You are 
16 


234 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


well now, father, aren’t you ? ” She took the withered 
face in both her hands and scanned it anxiously. 

“ Quite well, dearie, quite well. A little shaky yet, 
that’s all. Tell her, Ferd. You know I’ve been sick, 
daughter, oh yes, quite sick. Let me see. Oh yes, 
now I remember. It was just after she went off to be 
a missionary among the Mormons that I took sick, 
wasn’t it, Ferd? But Fm all right now, darling. 
Ferd stuck to me like a man. Tell her about it, 
Ferd.” 

He smiled fatuously upon them both, then fell once 
more to patting the little hand that lay trembling in 
his clasp. His happiness was complete. Effie was 
once more close enough for him to touch her and he 
asked nothing more at the hands of fate. 

“What does it all mean?” she asked, turning her 
eyes once more upon Ferdinand. “ He does not seem 
at all himself.” 

“No. Nor will he ever be himself again. All hope 
for him has died out in my heart within the last half 
hour. Your work is complete.” 

“ My work ? Don’t look at me so mercilessly, please. 
Don’t answer me so mysteriously. Remember that 
from the moment I left my father’s house impelled to 
obey a higher mandate than that of any earthly parent, 
up to this one, I have not heard one word from my old 
home. I have supposed my father living the life he 
led during the ten years I was away from him in Boston, 


FACE TO FACE. 


235 


active in all good works, blessing the poor, comforting 
the sorrowing of all ranks and stations.” 

“ That was the life of his own choosing ; this is his 
life of your making! That his state of mind should 
come on you with the shock of a surprise is not my 
fault. On the night that you so inhumanely deserted 
your father — stop! don’t interrupt me! You have 
asked me to tell you all about it, and so has he. I 
must do it my own way, and as Mr. John Quinby has 
evidently judged best to destroy the letters written 
you, without letting you see them, I must necessarily 
be a. trifle prolix.” 

“ That insulting charge my husband must answer in 
person ! ” she said, flushing indignantly. 

“ Nothing would give me more entire satisfaction. 
But to go on. The night of your flight your father 
was smitten with a stroke of paralysis that rendered it 
an even thing for weeks whether he would live or die. 
From the moment of reading your letter, either with a 
view of shielding you from suspicion, or in a pitiable 
effort at self-deception, he has insisted upon it that 
you had come here in the capacity of a missionary. 
I allowed the poor old man to comfort himself with 
the delusion. It will be an act of mercy if you do not 
undeceive him. As soon as he was able to give any 
commands, he made me write to Mr. John Quinby 
asking him to take you under his protection, until he, 
your father, was able to come for you. Mr. Quinby 


236 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


has acquitted himself worthily of the trust reposed in 
him.” 

His words came thick and hot as thunderbolts as he 
hurled them at her with fierce rapidity of utterance. 

“ Just about the time when your father’s naturally 
robust physique was promising him a triumph over his 
first attack came your letter, telling him that you had 
been sealed to John Quinby, the recreant husband of 
your own best friend ! And then indeed the iron 
entered into his soul and there it rankles now I They 
told me that there was one hope for his recovery. It 
lay in his seeing you again. I loved the old man so 
that I wanted to give him that one chance. And I 
thought — oh ! while I am about it, let me lay bare my 
soul too ! I thought that, maybe, when you saw what 
you had done, nature would assert itself and in 
your remorse you might heal the wounds of your own 
making by going back to your home with him, and 
letting time help to restore you both to the peace you 
threw away from him and yourself too. Yes, yourself 
too. If you do not feel it yet, you will — you must, 
as inevitably as there is a God in Heaven and a God- 
implanted conscience in your breast! You think, and 
I give you credit for your hallucination, that you are 
acting up to the instincts of that conscience now; but 
the scales will drop from your eyes and reveal yourself 
and your so-called religion in such monstrous hideous- 
ness that then your very worst enemy will be com- 


FACE TO FACE. 


237 


pelled to pity you. Doubtless you think I am insult- 
ing you, insulting your creed — insulting the Saints all 
at once ! If I thought that by heaping curse upon curse, 
or word upon word, I could turn you from this 
strange hallucination and give you back, all stained as 
you are, to that poor old man, how my tongue should 
wag ! As it is," I have brought him to you a physical 
and mental wreck. What he is now you have made 
him. He was meant by God to be a benefactor to his 
kind. He was one until you, led astray by that emis- 
sary of the devil whom your father nursed back to life, 
broke his heart and clouded his intellect. Religion, I 
take it, is meant as a solace for all earthly ills, as a puri- 
fier of unclean hearts and a source of strength under the 
assaults of the world, the flesh and the devil. What 
has the religion (God forgive me for using the word in 
so vile a connection) you practice done for humanity — 
done for you ? It has cursed your home — stained 
your soul, and left you at the mercy of man’s most 
brutal instincts.” 

She raised her hands as one does when warding off 
blows. 

“ Spare me ! I can not stand it ! If you have no 
mercy on me as a Mormon wife, spare me as a woman ! ” 

His arms fell apart and dropped listlessly by his 
side! She had exorcised the demon of his wrath! 
Exorcised it in the name of that which he had held in 
holiest veneration through all his chivalric young life. 


238 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


The name of woman ! Infatuated, mistaken, erring, all 
wrong she might be, she most certainly was, but yet a 
woman, so appealing in her very powerlessness. He 
was himself but another sort of brute ! His eyes rested 
on her remorsefully as she dropped her head in her 
hands, in a sudden revulsion from angry scorn to 
yearning pity. 

‘‘Effie!” 

She raised her face to look at him. It was white 
and drawn, but tearless. 

“ Go back to your old home with your father, will 
you not? Never mind what the man you call your 
husband says or thinks, go back to the old life and win 
your way back to peace of soul ! Never mind what 
the oily tongued sorceress, who took advantage of your 
dreamy transcendentalism to fire your undisciplined 
imagination, says or thinks — go back to the old home ! 
Never mind what the legion of devils that encompass 
you, blasphemously calling themselves saints, say or 
think — go back ! It is your one hope of peace on earth 
or rest in heaven ! 

She stood up before him visibly trembling. Clasp- 
ing her arms around her father’s neck she kissed him 
again, and again, and again! Then she gave Ferdi- 
nand the answer he was waiting for with sickening 
anxiety. 

“ I have given you a weapon by my cowardly pas- 
siveness. I have allowed you to say things you had no 


FACE TO FACE. 


239 


right to say, ignorant, cruel, wicked things. My father’s 
sad condition startled me so that I lost all command of 
myself. Your greatest error lies in your thinking I 
look upon marriage as an avenue to earthly gratifica- 
tion of any sort. I regard our bodies as given to us 
exclusively for purposes of divine discipline. Long 
since, in my lonely girlhood, it came to me to believe 
that, as worldlings talk, I could never be happy. I 
never seemed to extract enjoyment out of things that 
pleased others. I do believe that there is happiness in 
store for her who sacrifices all earthly delights to attain 
it. The more complete the sacrifice here, the more 
refulgent the glory there ! I have a mission to per- 
form here below, and God led me here direct to show 
me where my work lay. My mission is to impress it 
upon the women of my sect that the celestial and the 
eternal marriages into which we are sealed here are 
purely symbolical, their true significance dawning upon 
us only after we have passed beyond. My father is 
my natural charge. I thank you for all you have done 
for him. My home must be his home.” She turned 
toward her father, whose face, during the while Ferdi- 
nand had been swept away by his wrath, and when she 
was defending herself, had been full of perplexity. It 
was all so unmeaning to him. He grasped but one 
idea: Ferd seemed very angry and Effie very much 
distressed. That was enough to banish the child-like 
smile from his mild face and leave it full of trouble, 


240 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


“ What is it, dears? My little girl, what is it ? ” 

“ I want you to go away with me to my home, father ; 
will you go? ” 

He looked appealingly toward Ferdinand. Ferd 
settled every thing for him these days. 

“Will we go, Ferd? Goto live with Efifie, always?” 
he asked eagerly. 

“You’d best think about it first, sir,” Ferdinand said, 
laying his hand tenderly on the stooping shoulders. 
“ Tell her you’ll think about it.” 

“ Yes, yes, that’s best. Always best to think about a 
thing before deciding, dearie,” nodding sagaciously 
toward his daughter. “ I’m afraid my people would 
miss me. They’ve got used to my ways and my pills, 
and some of them are actual fools about the old man, 
Ferd, yes, actual fools — won’t send for another doctor 
under any circumstances. I told them my daughter 
Effie had gone off as a missionary, and that I was going 
to fetch her home, but ” 

The tears were streaming down Effie’s cheeks. Her 
father put his palsied hand up to wipe them away. 

“ My little girl ! Why, my little girl, what brings the 
tears ? ” 

She could stand no more. Winding her veil tightly 
about her face, she murmured something about coming 
back for him, and then went quickly away from them, 
sick at heart. 


CHAPTER XXI. 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 

I T was with a sense of taking shelter from a storm 
that she once more gained her own home, and 
locking herself into her bedroom poured out the pent- 
up agony of her soul. The rare relief of tears came to 
her, and she let them fall unchecked. Ferdinand Cos- 
grove’s words pursued her like so many Furies. The 
flashing scorn in his eyes haunted her. She wished 
that by burying her head in the pillows she could lose 
the ringing disdain in his voice. No one had ever 
talked to her so before. No one had ever dared. He 
had given her faith in herself a tremendous shock. 
Could it be that while she had only thought to step 
heavenward by soaring above the petty loves and joys 
and conventionalities of this world, she had been work- 
ing woe for others — above all to the venerable author 
of her being? Oh, where should light be found ! He 
had given her faith in her husband a tremendous shock. 
She had hardly thought John could do wrong. Her 
idol was toppling to its fall ! To suppress her letters 
was to show himself capable of a cowardly act. She 
could forgive any thing in a man sooner than a lapse 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


242 

from moral courage. He would say, perhaps, that “it 
was to spare her.” She had never asked to be spared 
one pang. She was ready to suffer all the pains and 
penalties, if any attached, for her own coming out from 
the fold of her fathers. If he had known of her father’s 
mental condition, and yet kept her in ignorance of it, 
what excuse would he offer in self-defense? She was 
impatient for his self-vindication. 

So, it was rather with an accusing angel than the 
officiating priestess he had come to regard her, that 
Mr. Quinby found himself confronted that evening 
when he got home. As child and woman Effie had al- 
ways been singularly direct in her words and actions. 
She only waited for him to seat himself with his slippers 
on and his evening paper in his hand. 

“John,” she said, standing before him with inter- 
locked hands, “ have you ever received any letters from 
Elizabeth for me, or to you, telling about my father’s 
having had a paralytic stroke ? ” 

The attack was altogether unexpected, and he quailed 
under it perceptibly. His handsome face flushed 
darkly. He made an unnecessary ado over the nice 
adjustment of his paper. 

“ Have you, John ? ” 

“ Letters ! bless me, why, I don’t recall any thing of 
the” — the lie would not come with those clear, serious 
eyes searching his face — “ not — ah — very recently, that 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 


243 


“ Not very recently then, John ! Any time since our 
marriage ?’' 

Should he be badgered into telling a lie to shield 
himself from a woman ? The idea was wholly absurd. 
He looked defiantly at her. 

“ Yes ! I don’t know but I did ! But where was the 
use of bothering you with them ? There was nothing 
very cheering or pleasant in them.’’ 

But they were my letters, weren’t they, John?” 

“ Certainly, my dear, certainly ; but as the request 
was totally unreasonable — ” 

“ What request ? ” 

“ The request that you should go to your father.” 

** Didh.Q write for me then?” 

“ Why, of course he did, child ; but I was not going 
to permit you to undertake such a trip by yourself, 
and ” — with sudden exasperation, “ what are you driv- 
ing at, Effie, any how ? ” 

^‘Then he was right.” 

She had been standing in front of him with a wistful, 
eager look in her solemn eyes ; now she slowly crossed 
the rug, and sat down remote from him. 

“ Who was in the right ? ” 

“ Mr. Cosgrove.” 

“ Confound Mr. Cosgrove ! Who is Mr. Cosgrove ? 
And where is Mr. Cosgrove? And what has he to do 
with our private affairs any way?” 

“ Mr. Cosgrove is the young Southerner who was 


244 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


studying medicine under my father. He is at the 
Clift House with father now! He has been like a son 
to poor, poor papa ! ” 

“ Your father at the Clift House ! Why, bless my 
soul, we must have him here.” He consulted his watch. 
“ ril go for him as soon as we’re through with dinner. 
Have you seen him ? Why didn’t you bring him right 
along home with you?” He was volubly anxious to 
pursue this phase of the subject ! Any thing to prevent 
her going back to the intercepted letters in that per- 
sistent, catechetical fashion of hers. “ How is the old 
gentleman looking?” 

“ He is a mental and physical wreck, John.” 

- What ? ” 

And Ferdinand says it is my work.” 

“ Ferdinand be d d 1 I will close his intermed- 

dling lips for him ! ” 

“ But suppose he is right, John?” 

Mr. Quinby turned from her in speechless wrath. 
Were the dragon seeds of discord to be sown here too ? 
Was life to be one perpetual combat for him, hence- 
forth? Effie had been a gently considerate wife to 
him up to this moment. He owed her some recom- 
pense for having deceived her about her father. He 
would make the amend as far as in him lay. He would 
even compromise with that impertinent intermeddler 
Cosgrove, for the sake of Effie’s peace of mind. It 
would be a bitter pill, but he would do it. He had yet 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 


245 


to recognize that he who once compromises with dis- 
honor, must consent to make of all his after life a 
thing of shifts and subterfuges and dodges and lies ! 
He walked over to her chair and stooped to give her a 
placating kiss : 

“ My sweet wife, one’s best intentions are liable to 
misconstruction often. My chief aim, since you have 
been my wife, has been to spare you pain. ' Perhaps I 
did wrong in keeping the details of your father’s suffer- 
ings from you, but it was meant in mercy to you. We 
must have him here. I will call at the Clift House 
immediately after dinner, Effie, and between us we’ll 
soon bring the doctor round.” And call he did and 
sent his card up for Dr. Ambrose and Mr. Ferdinand 
Cosgrove. The attendant returned with a blank 
envelope on his card-tray : 

The old gentleman was asleep. The young gentle- 
man sent that.” 

Mr. Quinby opened the envelope. It contained his 
own card torn half i-n two, nothing more ! Purpled 
with rage, he left the hotel. What should he* do? 
Go back and tell Effie that this insolent, fire-eating 
Southerner had come off conqueror? In his perplexity 
he thought of Anthony. And to Anthony he went 
for consolation. 

An hour later Mr. Anthony Quinby’s card^was car- 
ried up to Mr. Ferdinand Cosgrove. Under the name 
was penciled : 


246 THE BAR SINISTER. 

“ The interests of all concerned will be best sub- 
served by your seeing me.” 

Ferdinand came down promptly. One glance into 
the pure, clear eyes of the man who came toward him 
with halting step, holding out his left hand in greeting, 
for lack of any other, was enough to satisfy him that he 
was in the presence of a gentleman. Their hands met 
in a warm, lingering pressure. When they fell apart, 
both men felt that a new and lasting friendship had 
come into their lives. There was no pretense of mak- 
ing talk. Anthony had come with a purpose. Each 
recognized in the other an under-current of earnest- 
ness that would brook no trifling, no skimming over 
thin ice. 

“ My brother called this evening,” Anthony said, 
taking the initiative plunge, as they seated themselves 
on one sofa. I have just left him. He has told me 
all about our dear old friend’s condition.” 

“Yes?” 

“You refused to see him? John, I mean.” 

“ Yes.” 

Anthony looked wistfully into the almost boyish 
face before him. It glowed yet with the fires that had 
been kindled by the events of the day. He laid his 
hand on Ferdinand’s knee. 

“ My dear Cosgrove, I hope we understand each 
other very fully in this matter. You and I are power- 
less to remedy the monster evil that has ingulfed so 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 


247 


many that are dear fo us both. Do you not think that 
where cure is impossible, amelioration is advisable ? ” 

“ What amelioration is possible? God knows I would 
gladly ameliorate matters for that poor old man up 
stairs. It is what brought me here with him.” 

“ There is but one way to do it. And I am here to 
advise with you about it. Dr. Ambrose seemed happy 
to-day in his daughter’s company, did he not?” 

“Yes, I was pained to find that her presence stirred 
no harrowing recollections in his mind.” 

“ Why pained ? ” 

“ Because his fatuous happiness precludes all hope 
of final recovery.” 

“ I should think that where restoration meant return 
to misery, you would rather have him enjoy his imag- 
inary bliss.” 

“ I don’t know but you are right.” 

“ That being the case, if you consult the doctor’s 
happiness, you will leave him with his daughter. My 
brother is anxious to have him with her.” 

“ The sight of John'Quinby must inflict pain on 
him. I do not believe, even in his crazed condition, 
the sight of that foul destroyer of his peace and home 
could fail of torturing him.” 

“ I have not one word to say in defense of John 
Quinby. But bear in mind that Doctor Ambrose’s 
daughter declared for Mormonism in total independ- 
ence of my brother’s views,” 


248 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“True! true! Monstrous, incomprehensible infat- 
uation ! Tell me,” he went on with sudden fierce 
fervor of eye and voice ; “ you have been on this 
accursed soil now for nearly two years, is this thing, 
called Mormonism, any more explicable to you now 
than it was before you came ?” 

“ On the contrary, the wonder grows ! The more one 
sees of its thorough vileness, its bestial corruption and 
wide-spreading influence for evil, the more one marvels 
at the complacence of the United States Government. 
Charles Sumner in speaking of your slaves long ago 
said that it was a cancer so deep rooted in our body 
politic that no rosewater methods would ever uproot 
it. It was abolished by the war power, as John Quincy 
Adams predicted it would be.” 

“ And you think that will be the only solution of the 
present problem?” 

“ It is hard to foresee any other. This institution is 
as alien to our system of government as the cannibal- 
ism or the fetichism of Western Africa. And, 
although it has been a factor in our politics for many 
years past, nothing but discussion comes of it.” 

“ There must be some cause for this damnable 
apathy.” 

“ I find it in the two facts, that the horrors of Mor- 
monism do not appeal violently to the voting class in 
the country, and the non-voters are either Gentile 
women, ignorant of the true state of affairs, or Mor- 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 


249 


mon women, either sunk into the degraded indifference 
that comes from a sort of moral paralysis, or who are 
in such abject bondage to their superstitious fears that 
they shrink from touching the subject which they are 
taught to believe has a divine origin.” 

“ But to the women one would naturally look for 
that invincible protest of right against wrong that gives 
the battle to the weak. No evil has ever yet with- 
stood a determined onslaught against it by women. 
And these women have the right of franchise ! ” 

“ Another Mormon outrage ! It is the veriest sham 
on earth. The women are so absolutely under the con- 
trol of the men, that granting them the franchise was 
simply multiplying their own votes. When the Pacific 
Railroad was completed, this city was overrun with 
Gentile miners, who threatened to sweep the Saints 
out. By investing their women with the privilege of 
voting the Saints retained the balance of power in 
their own hands. 

“ What the world knows of Mormon life and charac- 
ter falls far short of the truth,” he added, gloomily. 

Then whosoever sheds the light of searching inves- 
tigation and fearless denunciation upon this dark plague 
spot, will be hastening the hour of retribution? ” 

“ I think so.” 

A thoughtful silence fell between the two men. 
Anthony broke it by rising to go. 

“To return to my errand. Dr. Ambrose has a de- 

17 


250 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


voted friend in my sister-in-law Anna and in myself. 
Effie, of course, belongs to those who have claims on 
him.” 

“ Forfeited claims.” 

“ Perhaps ! But it is hardly likely that you are in a 
position to devote your life to Dr. Ambrose.” 

“No! It has received an impetus in a new direc- 
tion — but the doctor — ” 

“Yes! Let us settle about the doctor first. If you 
think well of it, he shall spend his time impartially 
between Anna and Effie. He will be affectionately 
cared for by both women — and — ” 

“And?” 

“It shall be my care that John never crosses his 
path. It will be easily enough managed under the 
peculiar domestic regulations that hold good here.” 

“ I have no legal right to settle this matter for my 
friend and benefactor. It must be just as his daughter 
says,” Ferdinand said coldly. 

“ It is her expressed wish that the decision be left in 
your hands. She says you have been a better son to 
him than she has been a daughter and your decision 
shall be accepted as final.” 

“She is very good to me.” There was a lurking 
irony in his voice that did not escape Tony’s quick 
ear. 

“She is full of remorseful affection for her father, 
and good may come of their companionship.” 


TOTTERING IDOLS. 251 

Let it be as you say. I feel as if I were handing 
him over bound into the hands of his enemies. But 
since we have been talking my life has shaped itself to 
a definite object.” 

“ And that is? ” 

“ A full, entire, truthful and absolutely fearless ex- 
position of the workings of this foul system.” 

“ I wish you God speed ! It is only the hidden 
sources of corruption that defile and endanger life. 
Once lay bare the sore and remedies may be found.” 

Must be found! ” says Ferdinand with the absolut- 
ism of youth and inexperience. 

And so it was arranged that Dr. Ambrose should go 
to his daughter Effie the next morning. Anthony was 
to come for him. The old man’s satisfaction in the 
arrangement was without alloy. His face clouded over 
temporarily when he found Ferdinand was not to ac- 
company him, but cleared again when told that he 
should see him every day at the hotel. 

“ I shall not return to the States yet awhile, at 
least,” he said to Anthony. “ I must see how this 
experiment affects the doctor’s happiness.” 

So he staid on — exploring, investigating, ponder- 
ing, accumulating mountains of evidence against 
the Saints — biding his time. 

While John Quinby, congratulating himself on having 
purchased peace at home on such easy terms, devoted 
himself more and more eagerly to the accumulation of 


252 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


money, waxing richer and richer, and was regarded by 
Ford, Farnham & Co. as a thoroughly satisfactory 
partner in every respect ; and was held in high esteem 
by all the Saints as a man in good repute in the matter 
of tithes and a prominent figure in the Council House 
of the Seventies; and, in short, had every thing in his 
clutch but that most illusive of all phantoms — happi- 
ness ! 

And what doth it profit a man if he gain the whole 
world and lose that one thing? 


CHAPTER XXII. 


CLASS NO. 3. 

T^VERY thing in his clutch but that most illusive 
I j of all phantoms — happiness ! " 

What was 'happiness after all but the adjustment of 
one’s material resources to the peculiar necessities of 
one’s material organism ? And what limit was there 
to a man’s power to so adjust matters, save the limit 
of his capacity for enjoyment? With wealth enough 
to warrant a certain latitudinarianism and an elastic 
creed by which to adjust an elastic conscience, why 
should he despair of yet wooing the phantom to be- 
come his bosom’s guest. Because it floated further and 
further away from Anna’s frozen breath, because his 
solemn-eyed Effie frightened it away with her sacri- 
ficial attitude, must he give over the pursuit? He 
never gave over any thing ! 

- What Juno and Iphegenia denied him, Hebe should 
supply ! There are some things that no amount of 
preparation prepares for. So it was without any use- 
less preamble that Mr. Quinby said suddenly to his 
wife, Effie, one morning, standing hat in hand, ready 
for departure : 


254 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


“ Effie, I have decided to go through the Endow- 
ment House in a week from to-day with Barbara 
Hickman. It will be scarcely worth while to establish 
her separately, we being all of one faith, and she will 
be to you as a youngeY sister. You will, I am quite 
sure, find her docile and helpful. She has much to 
learn, and I trust in you she will find a friend both 
willing and able to be her guide and counselor in 
material things as well as spiritual. The small room 
over the library will answer for her accommodation. 
Be so kind as to see that it is put in a state of readiness 
for her, will you, dear? ” 

Then he had kissed her, and gone away. She sat a long 
time white and still where he had left her! What did 
this wild protest in her heart mean ? Why had she not 
borne in mind that this chalice would some day, sooner 
or later, be presented to her own lips — lips that closed 
themselves so rebelliously against the draught ! Now 
for the first time it dawned upon her, how bitter the 
cup her own hand had held to Anna’s lips ! She sank 
slowly upon her knees, and implored God not tg for- 
sake her in this the hour of her sore need. She 
reproached herself in bitter self-abasement for shrinking 
back in cowardice when the hour for vindicating her 
faith came upon her. She importuned Him to grant 
her strength in proportion to her mighty need. And 
when, a little later on, Mrs. Shaw made her appearance, 
she thought (naturally, as she could not know that the 


CLASS NO. 3 . 


255 

bishop’s wife was only complying with Mr. Quinby’s 
request) that God had sent His prophetess to rebuke 
her for her faltering faith in His divine plan of 
redemption. 

Mrs. Shaw spent the day with her. John did not 
come home to lunch. When he did, his wife twined 
her arms around his neck, and said, in that low, tense 
voice of hers, that seemed forever attuned to tragedy: 

felt rebellious this morning, husband; but I 
think God has forgiven me. You will find things in 
readiness for Barbara when you bring her here as 
your wife.” Her voice faltered over the last word, and 
she grew so ghastly white that he clasped his arms 
tightly about her to prevent her falling. She smiled 
faintly up into his anxious face. ‘‘ It is nothing,” she 
said, “ I am ashamed of my own weakness ! I will be 
better pres — ent — ly ! ” Her head sank heavily on his 
bosom — she had fainted ! 

On the morning when her husband was to bring his 
new wife home, Effie fluttered about her pretty cottage 
in a state of restlessness altogether uncontrollable. 
She was glad, she told herself, with pathetic humil- 
ity, that John had given her a week in which to prepare 
for it. Mrs. Shaw had spent a great deal of the time 
with her, and had said many comforting and strength- 
ening things. Mrs. Shaw assured her that after the 
first wrench of seeing Barbara sharing equal rights and 
privileges with herself, she would come not to mind it. 


256 


THE BAR-SIN'ISTER. 


Mrs. Shaw had been through it all herself, and had 
found peace and happiness behind what looked like a 
very black veil. It was only her inexperience that 
made it seem so hard to bear. Perhaps God had laid 
this trial upon her that she might be instrumental in 
Barbara’s sanctification. Had she, Effie, been giving 
the martyrs of old her almost envious meed of praise 
and adoration all these years, to shrink back in terror 
at this first opportunity of winning a like crown with 
them ? Whatever else befell, the new wife must see 
nothing of the commotion her coming had caused in 
her predecessor’s bosom. 

She was in the pretty bedroom over the library, 
waiting there to receive the bride when John should 
bring her from the Endowment House. They must 
meet first of all alone. She had stipulated for that 
when her husband had gone away from her to repeat 
the vows he had made twice before. 

“When you bring her back, John, tell her to come 
up stairs and to enter, without knocking, the door that 
has a white satin ribbon tied about the knob.” 

“ Don’t fire over her head, Effie,” he had said, laugh- 
ing nervously ; “ you know Barbara is nothing but a 
simple, modest peasant girl, and your transcendentalism 
will be so much Greek to her. All I ask for her, and 
all she will ask for herself, is kind treatment at your 
hands.” 

But it was not a “simple, modest peasant girl ” who 


CLASS NO. 3. 


257 


entered “ without knocking,” and stood unabashed in 
Effie's presence, taking in every detail of the pretty 
room, after one cool nod toward the quiet lady, who 
stood for a second in anguished irresolution. How 
handsome she was, this English peasant girl, with her 
large, unimpassioned ox eyes, her brilliant complexion, 
and her red, red lips, now wreathed in triumphant 
smiles! And how voluptuously beautiful the full round 
outlines of her youthful form were 1 A trifle coarse, 
perhaps, and the face altogether unspiritual, but a 
handsome woman by every rule of physical perfection. 

“Barbara!” Effie said, walking resolutely toward 
her with extended hands. “Your rights here are now 
the same as mine, and, God helping me, I will try to 
never lose sight of that fact. I will treat you as a 
sister and ask you to do the same by me.” 

“Oh! I dare say we shall get on well enough 
together,” says Mrs. Barbara Quinby, seating herself 
placidly on the side of the bed, as she wrestled with 
her new kid gloves. “ I never heard that you was par- 
ticularly fussy, and I ain’t overly given to wordiness 
myself. I’m sure I’m very much obliged to John for 
bringing me here, ’stead of taking me to Anna’s. She 
and me couldn’t ’a’ got along a week together. It’s 
real handsome of you to fix my room all ready forme.” 

Her gloves disposed of, she threw her new bonnet 
beside them on the bed, and walked over to the mirror 
to re-arrange her shining yellow hair, She was hand- 


258 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

somer without her bonnet than in it. Her fair hair was 
so abundant and glossy, and she had made such a study 
of its arrangement. Effie followed her motions 
in wordless attention. What should she say next ? 
How hard it was to have to say any thing at all 
to that coarse, beautiful usurper, standing there 
smoothing her pretty hair down with her large, 
well shaped hands, that were rough from a life- 
time of menial labor. What she did say caused the 
new wife to stare at her in a puzzled way : 

“ Barbara ! will you tell me why you wished to 
marry my husband ? ” 

The new Mrs. Quinby stared, laughed loudly and 
said candidly : “ Because he is the only man I ever 

loved.” 

“ Then you do not regard this step of yours as taken 
in obedience to a Divine Command?” 

“ I don’t think of it at all in that way. I’m glad 
Mormonism has made it possible for me to be happy 
with the only man I care for. I fell in love with 
John’s picture way back yonder in ’Lizabeth, when I 
hired to Anna to nurse little Abbott, and if it hadn’t 
been for the hope of the very thing happening that 
has happened to-day I shouldn’t ’a’ budged one step 
out of the State. But I hope,” she added irritably, 
“ we’re not going to be a discussing the rights and 
wrongs of the thing every day of our lives.” 

“ No, oh no. That would be not only harrowing, 


CLASS no: 3 . 


259 


but very unprofitable. I hope some of these days you 
will see the spiritual significance of the tie you have 
formed to-day. I want to help you to that knowl- 
edge.” 

“Oh, mercy ! John told me so ! ” 

“ Told you what, Barbara ? ” * 

“ That I mustn’t let you make me miserable with 
your tran — tran— oh, fudge, I don’t know what the 
word was, it was so everlastingly long, only I know it 
meant cranky. I hope you ain’t cranky about every 
thing else too. I assure you I mean to do my part 
toward keeping things smooth and easy for poor 
John. Come, let’s kiss and be friends. You don’t know 
how good I can be, when folks treat me right, and 
that’s what Anna never done. She was always rough- 
ing me up the wrong way. Come now, do be jolly. 
You know men-folks can’t abide sour faces at the din- 
ner table; it don’t agree with their digestion. I’m 
hungry as two bears. Wasn’t that our bell I 
heard ? ” 

She stood still waiting for Effie to take the lead. 
She had never willingly sustained a share in an argu- 
ment in her life. She wasn’t going to begin now. She 
was quite aware of her mental inferiority to her hus- 
band’s other wives, but, she reflected in triumph, 
“John had married her for her beauty, and as long as 
that lasted, she could wield an influence more potent 
than either of her rivals.” She moved suggestively 


260 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

toward the door. She felt restive under the spell of 
those grave eyes following her every motion. 

“ I’m going to hunt up our lord and master,” she 
said with a flippant laugh, looking back over her 
shoulder as she disappeared through the door. 

Effie followed more slowly. She was just in time to 
see Mrs. Barbara spring lightly from the third step 
into her husband’s arms as he stood in the hall below, 
apparently waiting for them. She kissed him with 
audible rapture, then moved on into the parlor with 
childish curiosity to examine things. How hard it was 
for Effie to descend the stairs and join them. How 
hard it was for her not to refuse the kiss her husband 
offered as token of fond impartiality.) How hard it 
was for her to open her tightly closed lips, and assign 
Barbara her seat at the table. How hard it was for 
her to believe that Mrs. Shaw was right in saying all 
the pain was in the first wrench. How hard it was 
for her to keep from screaming aloud in her agony at 
the thought of hourly companionship with this flippant, 
unspiritual woman. She, who had always shrunk from 
coarseness as from contamination. Oh, if John had 
only brought a lady to be her daily companion — one 
who, like henself, could have realized that life meant 
more than eating or drinking or dallying — one who 
would have helped her, and whom she could have 
helped to a better understanding of woman’s mission 
on earth ! How he seemed to enjoy the ignorant prat- 


CLASS NO. 3 . 


261 


tie of this beautiful girl ! Even her loud laugh did not 
seem to shock him. Was John, after all, himself of 
the earth, earthy? 

Ferdinand Cosgrove's words rang in her ears day and 
night. They pierced her flesh like thorns — pursued 
her like tongues of flame ! 

What has the religion you practice done for human- 
ity, done for you ? It has cursed your home, stained 
your soul, and left you at the mercy of man’s most 
brutal instincts ! ” 

Why was it that of all the fierce hot words he had 
spoken to her on that dreadful morning those only re- 
mained and would not be forgotten ? Was it because 
the spirit of immortal truth informed them and they 
could not die? Had it cursed her home? The re- 
morseful tenderness with which she hovered about the 
wrecked and ruined head of that home was her plea of 
‘‘guilty” to the charge. Had it stained her soul? 
The fierce human hatred and jealousy and envy of her 
husband’s new wife that she felt stirring within her, to 
her own shocked surprise, made her doubt for the first 
time since her fanatical adoption of the new gospel 
that she was achieving that triumph of the spiritual 
over the carnal which was to be her reward for morti- 
fying the flesh ! Had her religion left her at the mercy 
of man’s most brutal instincts ? She read the answer 
writ in letters of fire upon the face dearest to her on 
earth. She read it in her husband’s fierce, consuming, 


262 


THE BAH SINISTER. 


sensual passion for the low-born beauty whom he had 
taken to wife and who rapidly gained that ascendency 
over him that is only gained by women of Barbara’s 
type when man becomes false to his own better self 
and sinks to the level of brutes. 

From the moment that doubt entered the pure, if 
mistaken soul of Dr. Ambrose’s daughter ; doubt of the 
purity of the dogma to whose support she had given 
the unquestioning allegiance of an undisciplined heart, 
hungering for other food than her starved surround- 
ings had ever furnished her; doubt of the sufficiency 
of the new gospel to supply these cravings ; she began 
slowly but surely to fade from off the face ^of the 
earth. 

Poor Effie ! the problem of her life was too hard for 
her to solve in Christless effort. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 


THE PROBLEM SOLVED. 

S LOWLY but surely — not flinging away the faith 
that had proven to her but a broken reed, with 
the petulant haste of a disappointed child — not with 
the imperative disdain of a high-strung nature thrown 
rudely back upon itself in an anguish of despair over 
its own blindness — surely but slowly Efiie was coming 
to doubt the divine origin of the dogma which, stripped 
from that all-sufflcient cause, was revealed to her in 
its true hideousness, leaving her bereft and comfort- 
less. 

It was only after many days that the change in her 
became apparent to Barbara, absorbed in her own recent 
exaltation to the pinnacle of happiness, and through 
her was made known to Mr. Quinby in a burst of 
petulant anxiety not altogether selfish. 

No one had ever heard Efiie utter a complaint. Her 
gentle consideration for all who came within the sphere 
of her influence was absolutely unfailing. She only 
gave over her earnest efforts to arouse Barbara to a less 
groveling conception of life and its terrible meaning, 
when she found those efforts entirely thrown away on 
the obstinate and obtuse beauty. Gradually her 


264 


THE BA E- S/A- IS TEE. 


supremacy in the household slipped into Barbara’s more 
vigorous hands, and she was content it should be so. 
That look in her eyes as of one still searching after the 
unattainable, still seeking to know the unknowable, 
deepened day by day. And the look of resignation 
that came into her sweet, sad face was unsanctified by 
the joyousness of the Christian’s sure hope. It soon 
got to be a formula with her — ‘‘When I am gone.” 
She said it quietly like one who foresees the date of a 
long journey, but it was depressing to the robust Mrs. 
Barbara Quinby, and Mr. Quinby was called upon to 
lighten her depression. 

“John,” she said as they two walked the veranda, 
as he smoked his after dinner cigar, “ have you noticed 
that your wife Effie is looking white and peaked of 
late?” 

“ No! She’s never particularly robust during warm 
weather. Perhaps she’s in need of a change. I’ll 
speak to her to-night about it. Has she complained 
of any thing in particular? ” 

“ Oh ! Lord no, she never complains. I wish she 
would. A body would get a chance to jaw back then. 
But she’ll kill me, John, with those eyes of hers.” 

“ I told you of Effie’s peculiarities, my dear, before 
I brought you here. She is what we may call a relig- 
ious crank. But I hoped your good sound common 
sense would make a counteracting influence in my 
home that would make things a little more cheerful.” 


the problem SOLVED. 265 

“And haven’t I, John?” she asked, with jealous 
resentment, “ haven’t I bettered things for you ? Ain’t 
you happier, John, than you was before I came?” 

“ Certainly, my darling, certainly. I’m not com- 
plaining of you. Barb, my beautiful Barb ! ” He 
removed his cigar long enough to submit to one of 
those explosive caresses that generally punctuated his 
talks with his last wife. 

“ There’s got to be a change some way or other, 
John,” she continued, linking her arm in his as they 
renewed their walk. “ If my baby’s born under this 
roof it’ll be a religious crank too, and’ll be a spouting 
scripture at us before it gets through with the bottle.” 

No better proof of John Quinby’s deterioration could 
be given than his ability to laugh at this coarse wit. 
That he was deteriorating both mentally and physi- 
cally was unquestionable, although he still maintained 
his position with the outer world as a man of shrewd 
sense, strict probity, and “ thoroughly reliable.” 
Messrs. Ford, Farnham & Co. never ceased to congrat- 
ulate themselves on the success of their Utah venture. 
They smiled in amusement at the reports which 
reached them of Quinby’s having turned Mormon and 
taken unto himself two more wives. They exchanged 
stale jokes about the difficulty of getting along with 
one woman, and counted it another mark of Quinby’s 
enterprise that he should undertake three. He was 

still quoted in Wall street for the benefit of struggling 
18 


266 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


young men. It was whispered in commercial circles 
in Salt Lake City that “ Quinby was in the habit of 
taking a little too much.” The Saints are quick to 
notice any lapse of morals in certain directions. They 
are adepts in condoning “ the sins they are inclined to 
by damning those they have no mind to.” Certainly 
he was not the suave, genial gentleman he was when 
he left the States. His once elegant figure had grown 
obese in outline and his movements were correspond- 
ingly clumsy. The ruddy freshness of his complexion 
had deepened into a purplish tint, which, combined with 
his short, thick neck, made apoplexy a not improb- 
able contingency. 

He looked none too refined now for the handsome 
woman clinging to his arm with wifely devotion, as 
they walked, and his growing carelessness in the mat- 
ter of dress was more than counterbalanced by Barb- 
ara’s excessive dressiness. 

Far back in the parlor, whose opened windows gave 
them to her view as they paced to and fro, lay Effie on 
a sofa, very white and tired looking, as of one who has 
fought a hard fight, and lies acquiescent under defeat, 
conscious of but one desire and that, for the end. She 
wondered why she suffered no more pain at the sight 
of those two, walking and talking and enjoying each 
other’s society, as she and John used to walk and talk 
and enjoy each other. Not that Barbara had usurped 
more than her share in their husband — not that this 


THE PROBLEM SOL VED. 


267 


privilege of associating with John was less hers now, 
than when she prized it so dearly. It was only that 
her time had come to drain the cup of humiliation, 
and the dregs had sickened her nigh unto death. She 
had dashed the cup away of her own accord. But yet 
a little longer tarrying on the battle-field, worn and 
wounded, and then there came a soft, tender afternoon 
in the spring time, when the windows were all opened 
wide to let in the air laden with the breath of jonquils 
and hyacinths — when the elms that shaded the cottage 
from the street were tasseled with pale green — when 
the birds were twittering and fluttering in anxious quest 
of desirable nesting spots. When the day of resurrec- 
tion was hailed by all Christendom with glad anthems 
and rejoicing — when Effie Quinby, propped in her easy- 
chair, looked out upon the bright Easter sunshine, 
knowing that no other sun would ever rise for her, and 
rejoicing in the knowledge. 

The little parlor was full. They had all come at 
her bidding, Anna and Anthony, and the twins, 
and Dr. Ambrose and Ferdinand Cosgrove, and 
Bishop and Mrs. Shaw, and John Quinby and 
Barbara, and the family physician of the Quinbys, 
— the same who, years before, had begged Anna to 
believe that earth had no sorrows that Heaven can not 
heal — and for the time being all the warring passions of 
their souls were, if not quelled, quieted, as they waited 
for the end, sorrowing with a common sorrow. 


268 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


She had greeted each arrival with a tender smile of 
welcome, and then, when they were all there she 
stretched out her poor, thin hands, the one to her 
father, the other to Anna, and said in a clear, sweet, 
firm voice : — 

“ I want the two whom I have wronged most to sit 
close by me while I talk to you all. Father — Anna — 
will you hold up my hands yet a little while? I shall 
cease from troubling soon.” 

Anna sank upon a hassock close by her side, and gath- 
ered one of the little hands in both her own. Dr. Am- 
brose, on the other side, smiled apologetically on the anx- 
ious faces about the chair, as he patted the hand Effie 
laid in his. “ My little girl is tired, you know. She’s 
worked too hard among the Mormons ! My daughter 
was a missionary, you know, sir,” this by way of formal 
introduction of his darling to the doctor, whom he 
recognized as a stranger among the familiar faces. 
“ My little girl ! my little girl ! We must take her 
home. Ferd, we must get her home.” 

“Thank God she is goiing home, sir,” said Ferdi- 
nand Cosgrove, in a burst of uncontrollable grief ; then 
turned to leave the room. 

“Don’t go, Ferdinand, I want you here. I want 
you to hear what I have to say. Perhaps it will make 
some things a little clearer to you. Perhaps it will 
make it a little easier for you to think kindly of me 
when I am gone.” 


the problem solved. 269 

You’ll break my heart! Oh, Effie, Effie! Be- 
tween us all we’ve killed you. I didn’t mean to be so 
savage that day, but the words leaped out of their own 
accord, and ” 

“ I am glad they did ! oh, so glad, my friend. And 
I am glad to go. If you could unsay those words and 
I could go back into the error of my ways, do you 
think I would., Ferdinand ? Do you think I would 
give up the light and the truth that has shone upon 
me only when all other light and comfort failed me, 
for all the world holds dear? I am glad God did not 
smite me hastily, in his wrath. I am glad He chose 
rather to rack this ‘poor frame with slowly consuming 
weakness, else I had had no occasion for that dear 
friend ” (her eyes rested lovingly on the white haired 
doctor, who sat with his arms intwined about Anna’s 
twins, while the unchecked tears dropped on Comfort’s 
yellow curls), “nor would I have come to feel that per- 
sonal love for the Saviour, that makes it gain to die. 
Yes, gain to die ! But there is so much I want to say 
to each one of you, and I am so afraid that my 
strength will fail me before my apology is made. Yes, 
apology, dears — an apology for my whole mistaken 
life. 

“ I don’t know how long ago the foolish idea got 
into my foolish head that God had some special work 
for me to do in this world. I think it must have been 
after mother died and father was such a busy man and 


270 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


I such a lonely child, that I took to reading all sorts 
of books. I remember reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs 
over and over again, until my fevered fancy was fired 
as a boy’s is, I suppose, when he reads of soldiers and 
battles, and wants to do such deeds himself. Then 
when I went to live with Aunt Priscilla, I found she 
was just the same sort of woman I’d been reading 
about. She would have been a martyr if she’d lived 
in the times when martyrdom reflected glory, and so, 
instead of getting cured of my morbid fancies, I 
brought them all home stronger than ever. I did not 
know of God as a loving, tender, uplifting friend, 
putting us into a glad world to be glad ourselves. I 
thought I had to work out my own salvation through 
anguish of spirit and mortification of the flesh, and 
self-abasement, and all that sort of thing. I had no 
one with whom to talk about my foolish fancies until you 
came, Mrs. Shaw. I do not reproach you. You only 
taught me what you believed yourself and what I so 
gladly seized upon as the long looked for guidance for 
my own walk in life. I do not blame you. But oh, I 
beseech you to look well into it, you and John and 
Barbara, I beseech you all, look well into it and see if 
the religion I professed and you still hold by is not all 
a foul mistake, a dark tissue of lies from beginning to 
end. It has cost me my life ; but I count that, too, as 
gain, if it will be the means of making any one of you 
in this room turn from the error of its teachings before 


THE PROBLEM SOLVED, 


271 


it is too late. But my life is the slightest of all the 
penalties that have been laid upon me by an angry 
God. This dear head ” — her eyes turned wistfully 
upon her father's bowed head — “ has been bent and 
whitened by my awful mistake. I left him desolate 
and broke his heart. I darkened his life and destroyed 
his intellect. The religion I adopted cursed my 
home.” Ferdinand Cosgrove started convulsively as 
the words of his own cruel denunciation of her flut- 
tered over her white lips. “ Don’t be sorry that you 
said it first, Ferdinand; it was a trumpet-call to my 
conscience. It was an awakening thought you im- 
planted, that was all. Be good to father always, 
Ferdinand, won’t you, for his own sake and for my 
own, too? When I am gone, take him back to the 
home I left desolate. Bring there one of those 
sweet, pure girls from the South, one of the sisters you 
used to talk to me about, and put her in my place. 
Open my rooms and let her enter in and brighten 
them. Ask her to minister to father as I ought to 
have done. I leave my father and my home to you as 
my legacy.” 

As Ferdinand, sobbing, kneeled and pressed his lips 
reverently to the hand that rested on her father’s 
white locks, John Quinby made a step forward, his 
moody face flushing darkly. A smile of seraphic pity 
played around his wife’s wan lips. 

“ My poor, unhappy husband ! John, since the true 


272 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


light shone in upon my benighted soul I have prayed 
earnestly — oh, so earnestly — that God would be as good 
to you as he has been to me. You will soon conquer 
the grief you feel now. Yes, I know what you would 
say,” as he strove to interrupt her ; ‘‘ you would ask me 
to forgive you. Ask God, John. Your sin has been 
against Heaven’s first law of order and I was a partner 
in your guilt. It is not too late. For the sake of all 
you love, turn from Mormonism, take Anna and your 
children back to the States.” 

A passion of angry grief from Barbara, tempestu- 
ous and undisciplined, drowned her feeble voice. 

Peace, woman ! You are in the presence of God 
and his angels ! ” 

It was the Christian doctor whose stern voice sub- 
dued the tumult of Barbara’s passion and sent her 
abashed and trembling to a far corner of the room. 
But Effie called her back. She was too far removed 
from all this petty strife called life, to resent the child- 
ish outburst. 

“ I am talking for your good too, Barbara, and for the 
good of your unborn child. You have been happy with 
John — so was I. You think yourself indispensable 
to his happiness — so did I. I wish I might think that 
you, too, as I did, believed in the sacrificial nature of 
marriage here on earth, but you would not let me 
believe it of you. You laughed at me when I talked 
to you about it. You have not been unkind to me, 


THE PROBLEM SOLVED, 


273 


Barbara, especially since I have been so weak and 
helpless. When I am gone there will be no one to 
dispute your supremacy in my pretty home ; no one 
to share your husband’s smiles and tendernesses, but 
oh, Barbara, what will it profit you if you gain the 
whole world and lose your own soul ! Think of it, 
poor, ignorant child, and go to a long suffering Saviour 
for guidance. He will hear you and He will help 
you, as none on earth can, Barbara.” 

Her voice was growing perceptibly weaker. It had 
sunk almost to a whisper. The words came at longer 
and longer intervals. She turned her face toward 
Anna silently weeping by her side. 

“Tears, Anna! Tears for me! My poor Anna, 
whose heart I helped to pierce ! What can I say to 
you ? How can I beg your forgiveness humbly 
enough ? I think, dear, I will know that my peace is 
made with you, if you will let me lay my hands on the 
heads of your darlings and ask God to bless them 
and keep them in the hollow of His hands. They are 
girls ! They will grow to be women, perhaps, and will 
come into a heritage of suffering. My prayer for you 
is that you may be made strong enough and true 
enough, may have wisdom from on high given you to 
help you rear them. Bring the little ones closer, 
please.” 

They brought the twins to her knees. In unques- 
tioning obedience to the mother, whose loving sway 


274 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


was all they knew of the law of life, they kneeled before 
the dying penitent. Effie laid a hand on each shining 
head, and with her illumined eyes upraised to Heaven 
she asked God to fill each tiny soul with knowledge 
and truth and love and light. 

“ Light ! ” 

She repeated the word in a clear, ringing, trium- 
phant voice ! It was the last sound that her lips ever 
formed ; her head fell back upon the cushions of her 
chair ; a tired sigh fluttered from her tired heart ; 
twice — three times the soft lids rose and fell over the 
filmy eyes. With the anguish of a condemned soul 
traced in every lineament of his face, John Quinby fell 
on his knees before his dying wife, and Esau’s bitter 
cry burst from his quivering lips: “Bless me ! even 
me, also, O my wife ! ” 

But Anthony laid his hand upon his arm and drew 
him upward: “It’s too late, John! She is a saint, 
indeed, now!” 

While Ferdinand Cosgrove, lifting his streaming eyes 
heavenward, exclaimed in a voice of fervent rejoicing: 
“O grave, where is thy victory! O death, where 
is thy sting ! ” 

And over it all rose the heart-broken wail of the 
lonely father: “ My little girl ! My little girl ! ” 

Barbara stood alone, forgotten ! 


CHAPTER XXIV. 


AFTER MANY DAYS. 

W HEN Ferdinand Cosgrove turned from the grave 
where all that was mortal of Dr. Ambrose’s daugh- 
ter had just been laid, his chief desire was to take the 
heartbroken old man back to Elizabeth with as little delay 
as possible, and he set about making immediate arrange- 
ments to that end. His individual affairs were easily 
controlled. To give notice to the proprietor of the drug 
store where he had been head clerk since a short while 
after his arrival, that he must provide a substitute 
within one week, and then to dispose of that week so 
industriously as to leave no time for brooding over the 
sorrow that had altered, the entire complexion of his 
life, was all there was to do. 

This last week Anna claimed the doctor for her own, 
so Ferdinand was alone at the hotel, and finding soli- 
tude unendurable, haunted the reading rooms more 
than was his habit. An unusually animated conversa- 
tion was occupying the attention of the regular 
loungers in that apartment one evening as he dropped 
in, in search of better company than his own. He was 


276 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

listlessly indifferent to it until he caught its general 
drift, and then his eager interest outstripped that of the 
eagerest listener there. 

The arrival of three United States Commissioners to 
enforce the new law was the topic under discus- 
sion, and the constitutionality or the unconstitu- 
tionality of that law was being hotly debated. 

He had often, in the bitterness of his soul, stig- 
matized the government that failed to grapple with 
this hydra of Mormonism as cowardly and supine ! 
He had marveled at the apathy which rendered the 
nation at large so indifferent to this foul plague spot. 
But since the institution of polygamy had touched his 
own life so nearly, scorching and shriveling its freshest 
and brightest aspirations, he had been painfully alert 
to every word concerning it. He knew that the 
new bill, aiming a deadly blow at polygamy, had 
achieved the dignity of a law. But that it would ever 
be any thing more than a dead-letter law was what he 
most feared. The difficulties of conviction under a 
jury system where it would be impossible to impanel 
twelve men adverse to the system would virtually nul- 
lify its good effects. With all his soul he wished it 
God-speed, and with all his mind he doubted its efficacy 
in a community where lying was regarded as admissi- 
ble for the defense of the Church institutions, and 
where even the women, controlled by terror, rallied to 
its support. 


AFTER A/A Ary DA VS. 


277 


But his heart leaped within him at this first indica- 
tion of a decided step toward the enforcement of the 
law against a plurality of wives ! With savage joy he 
said to himself, that, if he could “once see John 
Quinby’s baleful eyes gazing upon the world he had 
made so dark for others from behind prison bars, he 
would be satisfied.” 

Brooding sorrow for the dead was swallowed up in 
burning desire to visit the full penalty of this law upon 
the guilty living. He was willing to continue on with 
clerking in the drug store to maintain himself, while he 
labored to this end. He was willing to postpone his 
home-going indefinitely if he could but carry away with 
him, when he did go, John Quinby’s punishment as a 
sweet morsel to roll under his tongue. Having gath- 
ered all there was to gather from the reading room 
gossips he went back to his own room to mature his 
plans. He would have to work without that coadjutor 
in all his previous attempts, Anthony. For disapproving 
of polygamy was one thing ; bringing a brother to 
judgment was another. It would not be easy to work 
up a case against John Quinby. He was a man of 
.wealth and position. He was not without influential 
friends both in Salt Lake City and in the States. It 
would be hard to procure an indictment against him ; 
still harder to secure his conviction as a bigamist. But 
the game was worth the candle, and he would play it 
out to the bitter end, come victory or defeat ! 


278 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


A night of sleepless meditation on the subject re- 
sulted in a decided plan of action. He was eager for the 
morning to come that he might put it into immediate 
execution. His first step toward it was to ingra- 
tiate himself promptly with the most accessible of the 
commissioners and to intimate to him that if he had 
come there desirous of vindicating the majesty of this 
law, it was in his power to deal a trenchant blow in a 
direction where the effect would be far-spreading and 
lasting. 

The commissioner was conscientiously minded to 
perform his duty without fear or favor, and followed 
the Southerner to his own room, where the subject 
could be pursued leisurely and privately. Ferdinand 
placed a box of cigars at the officer’s elbow, and light- 
ing one himself, began bluntly enough by saying: 

“ I will make no pretense of disinterestedness in this 
matter. The especial case I propose to assist you in 
working up, is that of a man who has wrecked the 
life of one of my dearest friends, and has planted 
thorns in my own pathway. But apart from that 
I hold it to be the duty of every man who has, by any 
means whatever, obtained any light on this subject of 
Mormonism, to give the world the benefit of that 
light ; and God helping me, I shall never fail to do so. 
You will find, if your investigations are made in the 
spirit of earnestness, that what you have heard of 
Mormon life and character falls far short of the truth. 


AFTER MANY DA VS. 279 

Mormonism is a hideous menace to the institutions of 
the rest of this country. It has taught that murder 
can be committed to advance the cause of the Church, 
and that its professed priests can lie to serve it. The 
doctrine of the Church affords its devotees every op- 
portunity to indulge in vice, if only they have a sufifi- 
cient number of wives sealed to them. Blood atone- 
ment is a doctrine of the Church that has been openly 
practiced and secretly taught. To the apostate the 
dreadful doom of death will be accorded in this new 
dispensation. It is told you that Utah women accept 
polygamy and are satisfied with it. They are terror- 
ized into acceptance of it as a cross put upon them for 
their sins. When polygamy was first proclaimed, they 
objected to it. A prophet was turned loose upon them 
who announced that the new order was the dispensation 
of God and must be obeyed at the peril of the Saints’ 
souls. Whoever questioned the morality of a plurality 
of wives should be damned. They make one think 
Brigham Young was right in saying that women have 
not sense enough to judge a religious system intelli- 
gently. The trouble is it is not a question of the in- 
tellect with them. It is altogether a matter of the 
emotions, and it is easy to see how years of terror- 
izing debase their emotional natures into seeming ac- 
quiescence with this vile order of things. But occa- 
sionally the poisoned virus of Mormonism touches the 
sensitive flesh of those who by every law of nature and 


2^0 


THE BAR.SiNISTEk. 


of reason ought to be secure from the foul infection ; 
and then — oh, God, the subject sickens my soul ! ” 

Let us come to the individual case you hinted at,” 
said the commissioner, not unkindly, for it was not 
hard to trace the marks of personal suffering on the 
handsome young face before him. 

“Yes — yes. Let us come to that. I want to place 
in your possession the points that may, that ought to, 
and by heaven ! I hope will, lead to the conviction of 
one of the wealthiest men in this city as a bigamist.” 

“ His name ? ” The commissioner took out his note- 
book with business-like alacrity. 

“John Quinby.” 

“ I suppose, Mr. Cosgrove, you are prepared to sub- 
stantiate all the statements you make concerning this 
Mr. John Quinby?” said the commissioner as he 
entered the name. 

Ferdinand flushed ominously and his voice was thick 
with passion as he answered : “Not only prepared to 
substantiate them, sir, but to be personally responsible 
for them if need be.” 

The commissioner, a mild-mannered, elderly man, 
laughed in amusement at this ready wrath. 

“ My dear fellow, don’t fly off so readily. I merely 
meant to intimate that the assertion of your belief that 
Mr. John Quinby was a bigamist, as %ve call it, would 
go a very short way toward accomplishing the ends of 
justice, or,” he added, significantly, “ of revenge, either, 


AFTER MANY DA VS. 


281 


unless you can prove it so by the most conclusive and 
irrefragable testimony. I suppose you are prepared 
to do that ? ” 

“ If the acknowledgment of a woman as a man’s 
wife, the bearer of his name, and her presence under 
his roof during the life-time of other wives, proves any 
thing, I am ready to prove that.” 

“ So far, so good ! Now then, my young friend, since 
you have declared your willingness and your ability to 
prove' this charge, perhaps you won’t mind telling me 
how you are going to prove it.” 

“ How! ” Ferdinand looked at the shrewd face be- 
fore him with momentary perplexity. In his youthful 
inexperience it had never come to him to observe what 
wide margins lie between law and equity, and what 
labyrinthine mazes one must thread to reach the crystal 
palace of truth. 

“ How ! ” he repeated ; “ why, I can take you to one 
of this man’s houses and introduce you to a Mrs. 
John Quinby, and then to another, and introduce you 
to another Mrs. John Quinby. 

“Good! And will?” 

“ And will.” 

“ This evening let it be, then.” 

And that evening for the first time since the day of 
Effie’s funeral Ferdinand lifted the latch of the front- 
gate to the house he had thought never to enter again. 

“ I shall simply say that two gentlemen want to see 

19 


282 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Mr. and Mrs. Quinby,” he said, as they reached the 
front steps. 

“ All right. You’re in command of this expedition. 
But this looks to me uncommonly like a vacant house. 
You don’t suppose your friends have retired this early 
in the evening ? ” 

No glimmer of light was visible. The shutters were 
closed, and the side-lights to the front-door revealed an 
impenetrably dark interior. 

Ferdinand rang the bell sharply. No response 
rewarded his repeated pulls of the handle. 

“ Hallo, here’s a placard ! ” said the commissioner 
who had been slowly pacing the veranda, awaiting 
developments. 

Ferdinand fumbled for his match-box, hastily struck 
a light and held it under the placard. To stared at 
them in big black letters. He gazed at them silently 
until the match burned to his fingers, and then he 
threw it away with a wrathful imprecation on John 
Quinby’s head. 

“ Flown ! ” said the commissioner. “ It’s hard to 
catch a weasel napping.” 

“ But he can not have left the country. He has a 
family here — a legitimate family — wife and children and 
brother.” 

“And doubtless,” said the commissioner, with a 
laugh, “will be for some time to come the most 
domestic of men in the bosom of that family.” 


AFTER MANY DA YS. 


283 


“ But is there no other way of working this thing 
up ? ” Ferdinand asked, grinding his teeth in the bitter- 
ness of defeat. 

“ None that I can think of on the spur of the moment. 
Of course, it will be the business of the prosecuting at- 
torney to work this material up, and, to the end that 
justice should be meted out impartially to the-wealthy 
criminal as well as the poor one, I was disposed to help 
gather the material. But as it is — hold on though, do 
you happen to know whether our friend ” — nodding 
toward the dark house — “ has any children by this — 

“Class they call them,” said Ferdinand, in a voice of 
disgust. “No, yes, that is I don’t know. Perhaps he 
has.” 

“ A trifle vague. I hope you have a better under- 
standing of your own meaning than you have given 
me.” 

“ What if he has ? ” 

“ Proof of the paternity of the child may lead to the 
conviction of the father: that is your only hope. And 
your first duty is to find the mother. I wish you joy 
of the search. But as a longer stay on this dark 
veranda is not calculated to forward the interests of 
society or morality, suppose we walk back to the 
hotel.” 

“You don’t care then that I should take you to the 
other house there?” 

“What for? I don’t in the least doubt we would 


284 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


find everything just as it should be there. Papa in the 
bosom of his family, a model of all the virtues for the 
time being, etc., etc. But to go there would amount 
to nothing more than an impertinence without an 
object.” 

“ Doubtless you are right. But the thing does not 
stop here.” And in crestfallen silence he led the way 
back to the garden gate. 

To find Barbara — to unearth this whole affair, that 
was his task. He was impatient of the delay forced 
upon him by the night. The next morning, as he sat 
moodily over his solitary breakfast, the friendly com- 
missioner walked over from his own seat at another 
table, and laid the morning’s paper down before Fer- 
dinand, pointing, as he did so, to an item among the 
short paragraphs: 

“ Mr. John Quinby, our esteemed fellow-citizen, has 
gone East on business for the firm of Ford, Farnham & 
Co. We trust the trip will prove beneficial to Mr. 
Quinby’s health, which has not been as good lately as 
his host of friends would wish.” 

“ Curse him ! ” 

That was Ferdinand’s low spoken comment on the 
friendly paragraph, and the officer returned to his own 
place, ruminating over the wide reaching of the evil 
that not only contaminated the lives of those who ac- 
cepted it, but warped and marred all that was purest 
and best in those who suffered from it. 


AF7'£Ji MANY DA YS. 


285 


“ That boy,” he said to himself, “ a sweet-natured 
soul as ever lived naturally — one can see it in his face — 
is consumed by a fiery thirst for revenge. It will 
become his ruling passion.” 

It was quite clear to the commissioner’s mind and to 
Cosgrove’s, that John Quinby’s sudden departure East 
on business for his firm, amounted to nothing more nor 
less than a fleeing from justice. In this they were 
altogether mistaken. Sunken as he was from his high 
estate of honor and manliness and probity, no overt" 
act of cowardice had yet added its lash to the many 
with which his conscience smote him. 

It was at her own request that Barbara was removed 
from the cottage which her ignorant fancy peopled 
with haunting sights and sounds, until her often re- 
peated declaration that “ she would go crazy if she 
didn’t get away from there ” seemed In a fair way to be 
realized. 

Coming home from his business place a week after 
Effie’s death, Mr. Quinby had found her in violent hys- 
terics. She threw herself into his arms moaning and 
sobbing, and talking by turns : 

“ I can’t stand it any longer, John. I can’t — I can’t ! 
She’s looking at me all day long, with those wide-open, 
solemn eyes that used to give me the shivers when she 
was here in the body. She’s no more silent now than 
she was then, as far as reproaches goes — but her eyes — 
oh, those eyes! If I go back to the little room that 


286 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


was mine when 1 first came 1 see them looking at 
me from the chair by the window, where she sat that 
first day, when she asked me why I wanted to marry 
her husband ! If I go into the room that used to be 
hers, I see her lying back upon the pillows, so white 
and patient, a following me about with those eyes, 
those eyes! If I walk on the gallery, even when you 
are by my side, John, I catch the gleam of those big, 
sad eyes, as she lay in yonder on the sofa, watching 
you and me passing backward and forward ! It used 
to hurt me a little then, John, but I could laugh it off 
then, for I knew I had as good a right as she had to 
you, for the Church people all say so, and if them that’s 
been studying about it all these years make it right, 
it’s not for me to say it’s wrong ; and maybe, after a 
while it will all seem right again, John. But not here! 
Never here! I can’t laugh it off here, John. I 
doubt whether I’ll ever forget her dying words. I 
tried to put myself in her place before she went, and it 
helped me to wait on her more like a servant than her 
equal in rights. I tried to think how I’d ’a’ felt if I’d 
been here first. And I know I’d a been a devil to her 
where she was a angel to me. That’s what makes it 
hurt so bad now, John. Oh! it’s the staying on here 
where she belonged, where her books, books that I 
don’t even know how to read, John, are laying all 
around, like they was waiting for her to come back and 
read in ’em again. It’s the piano, staring at me like 


AFTER MANY DA YS, 


287 


nothing more than a big lump of rosewood, now she’s 
gone, and I too stupid and ignorant to bring any thing 
but horrible discord from it. It’s the flowers that she 
tended and loved, that curl up their leaves and drop 
dead and withered as if it weren’t worth their while to 
bloom any longer now that Efiie’s gone. It’s the pretty 
trumpery all about the house that seemed to feel her 
touch and always looked their best, if she did but turn 
one of ’em end for end. You go out to your office 
where you never saw her in the flesh, and she don’t 
come to you in the spirit, so you can’t tell what it is, 
but it ’ll kill me, John, if I stay on here. I can’t stand 
it — I can’t — I can’t ! ” 

And even while he soothed her in his arms and 
promised her that she should be taken away from the 
cottage, with all its haunting memories, his soul was 
up in bitter protest against her childish assumption 
that oblivion had come to him already. Did Effie 
not come to him in the spirit ? Did she not follow 
him away from the home where she had endured, 
sorrowfully of late, with the pathetic dignity of a de- 
throned queen, out into the street, out into the busi- 
ness mart, down among the money changers? Every- 
where, everywhere — always, always. Was not his 
daily life one frenzied effort to forget the words of 
solemn exhortation she had addressed to him and Bar- 
bara conjointly? Was not his remorse-burdened con- 
science turned into a battle-field, wherein the powers 


288 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


of evil and good did perpetual combat for supremacy? 
Was not the cold and passive hand of flesh that Anna 
conceded to his clasp, less real to him than the phantom 
hand of his dead wife, held up in warning of the abyss 
toward which he was plunging? Turn where he would 
could he lose sight of her? 

Barbara was right. The house had much to do with 
it. Neither one of them could ever recover their 
equanimity in that spot. They would give up the cot- 
tage so soon as he could find new quarters for her. It 
was her preference to board, for the present at least. 
So Mr. Quinby had, without much difficulty, found a 
desirable place for her, far in the outskirts of the 
city, to which he removed her with as little delay as 
possible. 

That a telegram from Ford, Farnham & Co., de- 
manding his presence in New York for consultation in 
some proposed changes in their business, should have 
taken him out of the city, within a few hours of the 
arrival of the United States commissioners, of whose 
coming he was in profound ignorance, was merely one 
of those accidental occurrences that force of circum- 
stances colored into circumstantial evidence of his 
cowardly flight from the wrath to come. 


CHAPTER XXV. 


STORM TOSSED. 

B arbara QUINBY had been for nearly a month 
the proud mother of a son in whose tiny features 
it was her perpetual delight to trace his father’s linea- 
ments, when the woman with whom she was boarding, 
hitherto the most obsequious of landladies (for the 
Quinbys had her best rooms and were “good pay”), 
entered her room with a clouded face and asked abruptly, 
as she closed the door after her somewhat boisterously : 

“ When do you expect your husband back from the 
States, ma’am ? ” 

Barbara looked up at her in angry surprise. She was 
sitting, as she sat pretty much all the time now, with 
her boy in her arms, his tiny head pressed close to her 
round, white breast, while with her right hand she plied 
the softest of downy brushes over the softest of downy 
heads. It was delight enough for her to sit this way 
hour after hour watching the boy, like some beautiful 
leopardess with her young. She said now, with a pout 
on her full red lips : 

“ I think you might be a little quieter, Mrs. Westlove, 
when you see baby is asleep.” 


2go 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ There’s reason in all things,” says Mrs. Westlove, 
rather inconsequently. “ I didn’t mean to disturb the 
boy and I don’t see as I’ve done it either, seeing he’s 
never so much as batted a eyelid. But what I come 
in here to ask you, Mrs. Quinby, and what I want a 
answer to, is, when is your husband coming back from 
the States, ma’am ? ” 

There was no mistaking the acerbity of eye and voice. 
Barbara was at a loss to account for it. 

The long years of her previous servitude and 
poverty made her peculiarly alive to such influences. 
The rich Mr. Quinby’s wife answered the aggressive 
landlady almost timidly: 

“ I really can’t say positively, Mrs. Westlove. You 
know when Mr. Quinby left he told you that you must 
look after baby and me carefully, for he was going on 
business that might keep him from us for two months, 
maybe, and baby was only two weeks old when he left. 
Is it money you want? An advance, perhaps? I can 
let you have it. I expect I have given -you extra 
trouble, my meals brought up stairs and all that, but 
you don’t need to wait for Mr. Quinby’s return for 
that. I have my own check book,” she added quite 
proudly. 

“ Oh ! bother your money,” said Mrs. Westlove, who, 
as is the way with coarse-grained folk, waxed ruder in 
view of Barbara’s timidity ; “ money can’t help a body 
out of every sort of strait. I doubt whether it’ll do 


STORM TOSSED. 


2()l 

any good this time, ’less," she added reflectively, “ it 
might help you to buy ’em off.’’ 

A look of alarm came into Barbara’s face. The 
steady motion of the ivory backed brush over the baby’s 
downy head ceased ; she encircled him with both arms. 
Every possibility of danger involved harm to her boy. 
“ Please talk plainer,Mrs. Westlove, I don’t seem to make 
sense out of what you are saying. What sort of strait are 
you in.^ And who is it you think money maybe won’t 
or maybe will buy off?’’ 

“Well, you’re about right, plain talking is the best 
way.’’ She walked over to the window, and holding the 
curtain cautiously aside, she peered silently out for a 
second, then suddenly, and without turning her head, 
she sent her voice cautiously back toward Barbara : 

“ Put the boy down on the bed and come here. I’ve 
got something to show you.’’ 

Barbara obeyed her quickly and unquestioningly, 
then joined her at the window. 

“ Do you see that fellow over yonder?’’ Mrs. West- 
love asked, “ directly in front of old Shannon’s gate, — 
there, now he’s walking toward Elm street — the one 
with the gray baggy trowsers — now he’s smack under 
the lamplight.’’ 

“Yes! I see him,’’ says Barbara, impatient of this 
unnecessary minuteness, “ but what of him ? " 

“A good deal of him,’’ says Mrs. Westlove, follow- 
ing the man in the gray baggy trowsers with resentful 


292 


TJJE BAR-SINISTER, 


eyes. He’s a spy ! He’ll tramp there till midnight, 
then leave.” 

A spy ! Spying what and who ? ” Barbara asked 
amazedly. 

“ That’s what I come here to talk to you about, 
ma’am,” says Mrs. Westlove, dropping the curtain and 
settling herself rather forcibly in a chair. Facing 
toward Barbara, with a hard fixedness of purpose in 
her eyes that bespoke unflinching determination to 
unburden her mind of all that was still on it she 
began : 

“ I’ve been supportin’ myself by takin’ in boarders 
ever since Dave Westlove, that was my husband, de- 
parted this life, and I ain’t never yet had a breath of 
scandal blow toward me or my house, which brings 
me in a good ’nough income for a poor lone widow 
woman with only one mouth to feed, and so, ma’am, — ” 

“ Scandal ! ” Barbara brought her back to her text 
with summary decision. She was in no mood to submit 
quietly to Mrs. Westlove’s diffusive style of narration. 

“Yes, scandal! I don’t mean along of your being a 
Mormon gentleman’s wife, that’s all right ’nough until 
folks gets to stirrin’ up musses with their new-fangled 
laws and bothersome notions ’bout right an’ wrong. I 
don’t say but what you’ve been good pay and no 
particular trouble to me either, but folks is that squeam- 
ish, that if it got out that there’d been an arrest made 
from my house, it might affect my lettin’ of my rooms 


STORM TOSSED. 


293 


SO easy, you see, and that’s what made me ask you 
— plump out — when your husband was coming back.’* 

“ But I don’t see yet,” says Barbara, quite bewil- 
dered, “ what all your talk has to do with me or my 
husband either ! ” 

“Oh, bother, it takes a deal of plain talking to make 
some folks see through a grindstone even when there’s 
a hole in the mJddle of it. You’ve been so took 
up with that baby that you never read the paper, I 
s’pose ? ” 

This questioningly. Barbara blushed to the very roots 
of her blonde hair. She did not dare to acknowledge 
that she never read any thing, she simply said deprecat- 
ingly : 

“ I reckon I have slipped behind the times since 
John left.” 

“Well! the trouble’s all along of this new law that 
makes it bigamy for a man to have more than one 
wife. I knew there’d been no end of gabbling about 
it, but it seems now the folks at Washington has sent 
some men over here to carry it out, and I do hear 
they’re stirring things up purty lively for the Saints.” 

Barbara blanched to the very lips but said nothing ; 
getting up and walking to the window she looked out 
again into the lamp-lighted streets. The man in the 
gray baggy trowsers was still pensively promenading 
up and down on the other side. Every now and then 
he stopped and cast an anxious glance skyward. She 


294 the bar-sinister. 

followed his gaze. Stormy looking clouds were scud- 
ding after each other in wind-driven haste. 

“ Who do you suppose he is waiting for ? ” she asked, 
trying to make her voice sound altogether careless and 
indifferent to Mrs. Westlove’s ears. 

“Your husband!” said the woman with coarse 
directness. 

Barbara staggered back to her chair as if she had been 
struck a mortal blow. 

“ My husband ! How dare you say so? No one would 
presume to trouble Mr. Quinby. He has powerful 
friends, and plenty of money, and you don't know that 
that horrid wretch is even watching this house. You’re 
just trying to kill me while John’s gone. Yes, you are, 
you are ! ” 

Mrs. Westlove looked at the hysterical creature with 
placid contempt for her utter lack of self-control. 

“ Kill you ! I’d like to know what in the name of 
common sense I should want to kill you for? How’d 
that help me to save the good name of my house. I’d 
like to know ? And that’s about all I can afford to 
look after now. I didn’t even come here to pester you 
until I couldn’t help myself. But charity begins at 
home, Mrs. Quinby, an’ I’m a poor lone widow woman 
which can’t afford to have spies hanging around her 
house day and night like she was suspected of harborin’ 
criminals, or thieves, or murderers, or the dear knows 
what beside.” 


STORM TOSSED. 


295 


“ But how do you know they are watching this 
house ? ” asks Barbara, anxiously. 

“ Because I’ve got sense ’nough to put two and two 
together and tell whether it makes four or don’t. 
Your husband hadn’t been gone out of town more’n a 
week when a gentleman (a outer an’ outer he was, too) 
called here one morning and asked if Mrs. JohnQuinby 
boarded here? I said yes, but I didn’t think you’d 
care to receive visitors as you hadn’t been down stairs 
since your baby was born, but I’d see, an’ he said he 
was much obliged, but he didn’t care specially to see 
you. He just wanted to ask if I could tell him when 
Mr. Quinby was expected back, an’ I said I couldn’t 
just exactly, but I thought when he left he allowed to 
be gone just about a month or perhaps six weeks or 
thereabout, an’ ever since that blessed day, there’s been 
an eye on this house.” 

“ Mrs. Westlove,” says Barbara with frightened eyes, 
“ if John was here what would they do ? ” 

“Arrest him for bigamy.” 

“ And then ? ” 

“ Put him in jail.” 

“ And then ? ” 

“ Send him to the penitentiary for life, I s’pose. The 
folks at Washington do seem to be gettin’ into purty 
hot earnest about it.” 

“ But you have to prove things before you can pun- 
ish a man for them, don’t you, Mrs. Westlove ! ” 


296 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ I s’pose you do. But there wouldn’t be much 
difficulty about that once they tracked him to this room,” 
the woman answered brutally, nodding toward the 
sleeping child. 

Barbara looked at her with eyes that seemed to 
plead for pity, but she did not speak again for a long 
time. Then it was to ask : 

“ What sort of looking man was it that asked if I 
boarded here ! ” 

“ Oh, bother, I don’t carry a photograph gallery in 
my head. He was tallish, and darkish and slimmish — ” 

“ With big black eyes ? ” 

“Yes, eyes that looked like blazing coals was hid 
behind ’em somewhere.” 

“And a trick of pulling at his long mustache while 
he talks ? ” 

“ Yes ! that’s him to a dot. Know him ? ” 

“Yes,” says Barbara through her clenched teeth, “I 
know him.” 

“A friend of your husband’s?” 

“ The worst enemy he has on earth.” 

“ Then it’s a bad showing all around,” says Mrs. 
Westlove moodily. “ I thought maybe it was some- 
body that wanted to put him on his guard ; but if it’s a 
enemy I wouldn’t care to stand in the Quinby shoes. 
Now if it was a question of abstract justice your money, 
if you used it free enough, might help you over what 
looks to me like a purty rough row of stumps, but if 


STORM TOSSED. 


297 


there’s personal spite mixed up in it, I wouldn’t give 
shucks for your husband’s chances, ” with which bit of 
acrid moralizing the landlady flounced out of the room, 
mentally resolved that so soon as day came again, she 
would give Mrs. Quinby warning that she wanted her 
rooms vacated immediately. She wasn’t going to risk 
the reputation of her respectable boarding house, by 
having a man arrested for bigamy under its roof. 

Barbara sat for a long time when the landlady left 
her, stunned almost beyond the power of connected 
thought. That Cosgrove was at the bottom of what 
she called in her bitterness this persecution, she did 
not doubt for a moment, nor did she doubt that he 
would pursue her husband with the patient persever- 
ance of a sleuth-hound. She shuddered as her imagi- 
nation conjured up a horrible vision of John seized on 
his return, by the merciless officers of the law. John 
imprisoned — convicted — sent to the penitentiary for 
life! But to bring this fearful doom upon the idol of 
her heart they must prove him a criminal. With Effie 
dead and herself invisible how could they prove any 
thing against John? She could save him — she alone 
could save him. She would fly with her baby ; fly this 
very night. But where? She did not know — she did 
not care. Any where, any where, only so that, by her 
disappearance she could blot out all testimony against 
John. She laughed in triumph at the thought of de- 
feating John’s enemy, and springing to her feet began 
20 


298 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


excitedly to make preparations for a midnight flight. 
She peered out into the dark night once more. The 
flame of the street lamp flickered tremulously under 
its glass shade as the rising wind fanned it through the 
crevices. The rack of storm-clouds was blacker and 
heavier than when she last looked out. The man in 
the gray baggy trowsers was nowhere to be seen. She 
cautiously raised the sash and leaned over to obtain a 
better view of the street immediately under her own 
window. He was standing motionless before Mrs. 
Westlove’s door. She drew her head back with a low 
cry of alarm. There was no longer any room for 
doubt as to his errand ; but she would defeat it yet. 
The night was black and threatening. Shf was far 
from strong yet. She tottered even now as she 
went about hastily dressing herself in a plain black 
dress and making up a bundle of clothes for her baby, 
and concealing her money on her person and making 
every thing ready, so that when the house should become 
quite still and the spy out yonder should have gone 
away for the night, she could slip out and go — where ? 
She had a vaguely defined purpose of finding her way 
to a railroad station and taking the first train that left 
the city for any direction, it didn’t the least matter 
which, and then, when she had put a safe distance be- 
tween them, she would write and tell John where she 
was and why she had done this thing. She would not 
leave a single word in writing for him, for, in her child- 


STORM TOSSED. 


' 299 


ish ignorance, she did not know what sort of a missile 
for John’s destruction it might turn to in the hands of 
his persecutors. She could not notify him beforehand 
of her plans, for he might appear at any moment, and 
then — she moaned aloud as the horrible possibility 
of his arrest stared her in the face. The clock on the 
mantle struck twelve. She made one more pilgrimage 
to the window; the street was silent and deserted. Tying 
her bonnet-strings tightly under her chin with trem- 
bling hands, feeling in the bosom of her dress to make 
sure the roll of bills was where she had secreted it, 
she gathered her sleeping baby in her arms and stole 
silently down the stairs, feeling her way by the banis- 
ters, fearful that a mis-step might disturb the child and 
arouse the household. She noiselessly unbolted the 
front door and crept through it out into the dark and 
blustering night. She stood still for a second only and 
trembled as the rude wind seized upon her shawl and 
set it flapping violently about the little form she held 
in a close, firm clasp, then she walked resolutely down 
the steps and out into the street. She was in a part of 
the town she knew nothing of. Her husband had 
brought her there in a carriage from their old home. 
She scarcely knew which way to turn to find the rail- 
road station she aimed for. The storm that was now 
advancing with low, distant mutterings, frightened and 
bewildered her. All through her ignorant life a thun- 
derstorm had been fraught with mysterious terrors for 


300 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


her. For one irresolute moment she harbored the 
wish to go back to the shelter of Mrs. Westlove’s 
house and let things take their course. Then she re- 
proached herself bitterly for treachery to John. The 
lurid lightning flashes that illumined her way gave her 
confused glimpses of darkened houses, closed doors, 
deserted streets. She walked on with her head bowed 
to ward off the big, heavy drops of rain that were be- 
ginning to fall at long, sullen intervals with a loud 
splash on the pavements and against the sides of the 
houses she was passing. If she might only ring at one 
of those bells and ask shelter for herself and baby just 
until the storm had spent its fury. But if they did not 
refuse it, they would take her in and question her. 
Questions might lead to revelations that would harm 
John. If each drop of rain that fell should turn to a 
heavy hail stone she would stagger on and let it pelt 
her to death rather than risk one hair of that dear 
head. Whenever she felt her strength of purpose 
flagging and the desire to beg shelter assailing her 
more fiercely, she conjured up a vision of John in the 
penitentiary, and her resolve petrified. On and on and 
on she walked, wrapping her thick shawl more tightly 
over her baby’s head, and, as. the blinding lightning 
gave him to her view every little while, eagerly assur- 
ing herself that he was warm and dry. On and on, 
turning corners when she came to them, simply be- 
cause she came to them ; peering, by the lightning’s 


STORM TOSSED. 


30 1 

aid, far ahead of her through stony vistas of houses, 
girded about with wet and glistening trees, she longed 
for the coming of help in some shape or form, if only 
in the uniform of a night watchman. Any body, some- 
body to speak a word of human comfort to her and 
help her in her dreary search for a railroad depot. If 
she could stand still and cry aloud for help, she thought 
she would feel stronger, but the thought of John’s 
.peril sealed her lips and inspired her faltering steps. 
She must get away from there, far away from there, so 
no one could force her to say she was John Quinby’s 
wife. The pitiless storm drove her forward with unre- 
sisting speed. Her skirts clung heavy with rain about 
her tired ankles, making every step a weariness and a 
task. Gradually the deiined purpose of reaching a 
railroad station resolved itself into a longing for rest. 
Any where, on the wet stone steps of the houses she 
reeled rather than walked past, if only they gave her 
rest. The street suddenly widened into a square set 
about with trees. A grove of shining trunks and 
dripping branches surrounded her. There were benches 
under the trees, cold, wet, hard, iron benches, but free, 
free for her to rest on, to sleep on. She flung herself 
upon one of them in a state of exhaustion bordering on 
unconsciousness. The storm had sobbed itself out 
and there were no electric flashes by which she could 
examine her surroundings. The cessation of move- 
ment disturbed the sleeping child. He murmured 


302 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


querulously. He would awake and cry. She bared 
her breast to the damp night air to give him comfort. 
She passed her icy hand over the little form in the 
darkness to see if he were still dry and safe. No harm 
had come to the boy from the driving rain and pitiless 
wind. No harm should come to John.* The night 
must be almost spent now. She would rest there under 
the wet trees until it was light enough for her to see 
and then she would find somebody to show her the 
way to a depot. The fierce storm that she had braved 
with her baby clasped to her bosom had driven all the 
rest of the world to cover. Not a human footfall had 
comforted her ear with a sense of companionship in 
misery, not a moving thing beside herself and the 
spirit of the storm had been aj^road that woeful night. 
She shivered and drew the shawl closer yet about her 
bared bosom. Oh, for daylight, that she could find 
food and warmth for herself, shelter for her child. Her 
head fell over to one side, the cold, iron back of the 
bench held it and sustained. The cold, hard contact 
made her moan with pain. Her lids dropped heavily. 
Barbara, as undisciplined as the winds that had buf- 
feted her weary feet and smitten her cold wet cheeks, 
as passionate as the storm that had spent its fury on 
her unsheltered head, loyal in her devotion, grand in 
her self-abnegation, slept ! 


CHAPTER XXVI. 


IN THE TOILS. 


HE was aroused by the flashing of a policeman's 



O “ bull's eye ” full in her face. She opened her 
eyes with a start and sat bolt upright, then uttered a 
sharp cry of pain and placed her hand on her side. 

“ What are you doing here ? ” asked the watchman, 
laying his hand ungently on her shoulder. His face 
was harsh and his voice threatening. 

“ Looking for a railroad depot,” Barbara answered, 
gasping with the pain each word produced. “ I’ll pay 
you well to take me and my baby to the station.” 

“ What station ? ” 

“ Oh, I don’t care which one. Only be quick about 
it. I don’t care where I go.” 

A brutal laugh was his only answer. He lifted the 
corner of the shawl to look at the baby, then asked : 
“What’s your name?” 

“What’s that to you? I tell you man. I’ll pay you, 
pay you well if you will fake me to the nearest 
station.” 

“ Come now, that’s liberal ! But let me show you 


304 THE BAR.SINISTER. 

how much more liberal I can be. I’ll take you to the 
nearest station without any pay at all. Come, get up! 
Move on 1 Tain’t far from here anyways.” 

She tried to get up, but staggered back to her seat. 
She was stiff from the exposure to the storm, and the 
pains that began in her side were shooting through 
every part of her body. She moaned aloud. 

“ Come, none o’ your gammon with me. Give me 
the kid, and then step out lively.” 

“ Couldn’t you get a cab for me ? ” she asked pite- 
ously. I assure you I am quite able to pay fora ride 
to the station.” 

“ That would be sorter stylish now,” said the man, 
preparing to take the child forcibly from her clasp ; 
“but we don’t lay much store on style at my sorter 
station. It’s a likely story for the horse-marines, that 
a lady which can afford to ride about town in cabs, 
would spend the night on this ’ere iron bench in Wash- 
ington Square!” He had the child in his arms by 
this time, and lifting Barbara to her feet with one 
strong hand, he retained his hold upon her arm, as he 
propelled her along the streets that were gleaming, 
cold and wet, under the first rays of daylight. 

“Am I under arrest?” She recoiled from him as 
the words came with almost a shriek from her lips. 

“ That’s what we call it in this part of the country.” 

“But I’ve done nothing ! I’m a perfectly innocent 
woman ! ” 


IN THE TOILS. 


305 


Then you ain’t got nothing to be skeered about. 
We re altogether too hospitable, though, in this part of 
the country, to l5t a lady set out a wet night under 
the trees, when we’ve got good dry quarters for her ac- 
commodation clos’t to hand.” 

“ But I will pay you any thing you ask, anything you 
want, if you will just go away and let me find my own 
way to the station.” 

She fumbled frantically in her bosom for the roll of 
bills. The officer’s voice was doubly stern as he saw 
this action. 

“Come, have done ! As it is, you’ll be committed for 
vagrancy only. How you come by the money you’re 
making such brags of I’ll find out later on. Only, 
don’t you be trying to bribe honester folks than your- 
self with it.” 

His words sealed her lips. Dumbly she followed 
him a few blocks, racked with physical pain, filled with 
horror at her situation, dazed with fright. 

When they reached the police station she was 
handed over with very little ceremony by the watch- 
man, who had found her asleep in the Square, to the 
station officer. “Your name?” that officer asked, 
with that coldly investigating stare he bestowed upon 
all such offenders against the proprieties^ Barbara 
answered his stare with a look of sullen stubbornness, 
and silently reached out her arms to take her boy from 
the policeman’s hands. 


3o6 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“YOur name, I asked?” The thundering tones 
frightened her from her resolve to be dumb. There 
was no limit to the power of the law, she warned her- 
self tremulously. She raised her eyes defiantly to the 
officer’s face, saying slowly and distinctly : 

“ Barbara Hickman.” 

And in the records of the police station books, for 
that night, this entry was made : 

“Barbara Hickman ; blue eyes, blonde hair, dressed 
in black cashmere, child one month old in arms. Ar- 
rested half past three A. M. in Washington Square by 
Patrolman Larkins. Committed for vagrancy.” 

The next morning when the turnkey had made his 
rounds with the prisoners’ breakfasts, he reported to 
the officer of the day, that “ No. lo seemed to be in a 
bad way. If she wasn’t wrestling with a tough case 
of pneumonia he’d eat his hat.” 

Examination by the jail doctor proved the man to 
be correct. Barbara’s exposure to the storm of the 
night before, when she was already in a reduced state, 
had brought on that dreadful disease. Inured as he 
was to every phase of human woe and human frailty, 
the jail doctor found his sympathies stirred to an un- 
usual degree as he watched this new patient, waiting 
for her to show some recognition of his presence. He 
had found her tossing with high fever, and moaning 
with pain when he entered her cell. Her cheeks were 
ablaze with the heat that was- consuming her. Her 


IN THE TOILS. 


307 


lovely hair had escaped all bounds, and enveloped her 
like a silken scarf of pale gold. Her parted, panting 
lips were crimsoned with the fever. Her eyes were 
closed, and her long lashes were wet with tears, that 
she had no strength or will to brush away. • Her baby 
was clasped close to her white, bare bosom. She was 
sleeping unrestfully from sheer exhaustion. He knew 
this sleep would not last long. He would question 
her when she awoke as to her friends. This was no 
place for a woman who was probably “ in ” for a pro- 
tracted siege. When Barbara opened her eyes and 
saw him, she gave a low cry of alarm. It was another 
one of those stony-hearted officials come to torment 
her. 

‘‘ Don’t be alarmed,” said the doctor in his kindest 
manner. “ I am the attending physician here. I am 
afraid you have caught a bad cold, and maybe will be 
sick quite a little while. If you will give me the names 
of your friends, I will see that you are conveyed there 
quite privately. No questions asked, you know,” he 
said reassuringly. 

I have no friends,” there was more of stubborn 
resolution than of desolation in this forlorn answer. 

“Acquaintances then, or home? Where would you 
prefer to be taken to ?. Come now, say that we are in 
for a spell of sickness, where would you be most com- 
fortable ? ” 

“ Right here ! 


3o8 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ That’s most extraordinary. You certainly must 
have some relative.” 

“Not one this side of England.” 

“ Dear me ! dear me! ” said the doctor, aghast at the 
unavailability of such very far away kin. “ Well, then, 
now, the little boy’s father ? Surely your— a — husband 
would not be willing to let you be sick in a police 
station if he knew? ” 

Barbara eyed him suspiciously. All this pretended 
interest in her was just to find out where John was. 
They were all hounding after John. If she died in 
that prison cell they should not wrench one word from 
her that would help them run him to earth. She 
shook her head resolutely. 

“ I assure you, my poor woman, I have no desire 
whatever to pry into your private affairs. I believe 
that you are going to be ill. It would be best for you 
to name some place or friend to whom I could take a 
message for you. You might die here, and your 
dearest friend know nothing about it. Off the station 
books you are nothing but No. lo — even I do not 
know your name.” 

A strange light, as of increasing satisfaction, came 
into Barbara’s face. If what he was saying was true, 
she was as much out of John’s way, there in her prison 
cell, as if she had gotten away that night. And then, 
if things straightened themselves out again, she didn’t 
exactly know how, but they might, it wouldn’t take 


IN THE TOILS, 


3^9 


her so long to get back to John's arms. She was glad 
she had not gotten further away. 

“ Doctor,” she said suddenly, feeling under her pillow 
as she spoke, “ I’m not going to tell you any thing 
about myself, except this much : I was aiming to get 
out of Salt Lake City, last night, and brought up here 
accidently. If it’s a good hiding place, it will suit me 
better than the finest room at the finest hotel in the 
town. I’m not a pauper. If you’ll take this money 
and look after me and the child until I’m able to get 
on my way, you’ll be doing something God won’t 
blame you for. You say I am going to be sick. I 
feel like I was being torn limb trom limb now, when- 
ever I draw a long breath. If I get delirious, don’t 
mind any stuff I talk. I ain’t got any kin in this 
country. My name’s Hickman. My baby’s name is 
John Hickman — we don’t know any body of any other 
name. I was a nurse in a lady’s family — I came here 
as a nurse, and I’m tired of the place, and I want to 
get back to the States where my baby’s father is, that’s 
all — that’s all ; and any thing more and above it that 
any body says, if it’s me, myself, is lies — lies, do yoii 
hear, doctor, and nothing more ! Take care of us with 
this.” 

She grasped his hand imploringly, and thrust the 
roll of bills into it. She had used up what little 
mental and physical strength was left her in fabricat- 
ing a lie to protect John ; she fell back upon her pillows 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


3^0 

laughing hysterically, as she babbled in a delirious and 
disconnected fashion, of persons and places in far away 
England. 

It would seem as if her will power to protect John 
held good even during the wildest of her delirium, for 
never the faintest allusion to him escaped her parched 
and fevered lips. 

Long, fiercely and successfully she wrestled with 
the malignant disease that had seized upon her with 
what at one time seemed a fatal grip. Her magnifi- 
cent constitution helped her fight back death. When 
the fever abated and the fogs of delirium cleared from 
her brain, she looked around her apartment in lan- 
guid amazement. She was still an inmate of the 
county jail, but her apartment had been converted into 
a luxurious bed-chamber as far as a prison cell was 
susceptible of such conversion. Soft, crimson woolen 
hangings hid the sinister iron bars of the window — gay 
rugs covered the hard, bare floor — flowers occupied 
every available coign of vantage — a basket of mixed 
fruits occupied a little center table that had also been 
added mysteriously to her belongings. The coarse 
prison fare that had been brought her bn her first 
morning had given place to delicate nourishment 
suited to an invalid’s capricious appetite. Books and 
pictures began to come in so soon as it was observed 
by the doctor that she needed some sort of entertain- 
ment. 


IN THE TOILS. 


311 

^‘Doctor,” said Barbara, motioning the nurse to leave 
them alone, “ when I asked you to take care of me and 
my child, I didn’t expect you to be so free handed 
with the money.” She glanced disapprovingly at her 
improved surroundings. “ I could have weathered it 
out in No. 10 just as it was, so you’d paid for a nurse 
for my child, but when it comes to gim-cracks ” 

'‘You are making a mistake,” said the doctor; “not 
an unnatural one, probably. Your friends, it seems, 
have found you out, and testified to their interest in 
your case, as you see.” 

Barbara’s eyes dilated with terror. Was John ex- 
pressing himself in this rash way to make her more 
comfortable ? 

“ I told you I had no friends,” she said, with savage 
impatience, “and you’ve been letting some impertinent 
stranger meddle in my affairs, when I was too sick to 
protect myself.” 

“ Tut, tut ! don’t go to working yourself into another 
fever. You have a friend if not more, and I’ve prom- 
ised her she may sit with you for half an hour this 
morning, if she does all the talking.” 

“Yes, her. A very nice old white haired lady, 
who has taken a good deal of interest in your case. 
She was to be here by ten this morning. It is three 
minutes of that now, and — ah ! punctuality itself, 
madam.” 


312 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


This last to Mrs. Shaw, who bustled into the room 
at this juncture, laden with fresh flowers and more 
fruit. “ Here is your friend of the flower mission,” he 
said to Barbara ; “ now then, I will leave my patient in 
your hands, madam. The condition of your being 
permitted to stay a second time as long as you please, 
is, that you do all the talking. The patient is naturally 
excitable, I take it — ” He paused, hoping Mrs. 
Shaw would volunteer some information. She merely 
nodded in the affirmative, so he concluded his sentence 
rather tamely: “ — and must not be excited.” 

“ And so it’s you,” said Barbara, as soon as the doc- 
tor was out of hearing, “ that’s been taking such kind 
care of me. But I’d rather you hadn’t.” 

“ In the first place,” says Mrs. Shaw, briskly, “ it’s 
not me. It’s all the faithful who glory in the stand 
you are making for the faith. They’ve been sending 
you these things by me.” 

“ But I’m not making any stand for the faith,” says 
Barbara, with creditable honesty. “ The woman where 
I boarded told me that they were watching the house 
to arrest my husband for bigamy, and I ran away so 
they shouldn’t be able to prove any thing on him.” 

“Yes, yes, yes! It was easy enough for us to 
understand why you got out of the way. These 
wretches would like the best in the world to strike a 
fatal blow at John Quinby. They want a shining 
mark. But if you’ll only stand firm, they’ll not make 


IN THE TOILS. 


313 


as big a haul as they expect,” says Mrs. Shaw, pro- 
ceeding to feed the sick woman on some jelly she has 
brought with her. 

“ Stand firm ! Why, what more is there for me to 
do? What connection can they make out between 
John Quinby and the vagrant Barbara Hickman? ” 

Mrs. Shaw got up and looked cautiously out into 
the corridor. No one was within' hearing. She came 
back to the bedside and said impressively : “ Efifie’s 
old lover, Cosgrove, is giving them all the points they 
want. But spying is a double game. We are pretty 
well up in points ourselves. One week from this is 
the day they've set for examining you. I wanted to 
let you know long enough beforehand for you to be 
prepared.” 

“Who is ‘they'? And what do they want to 
examine me about ? ” 

“ They are the commissioners who have been sent 
over here with powers to work up cases against our 
people by any means in their power, and they don't 
care how they get evidence just so they get it. Their 
intention is to force you to tell who the father of your 
child is. They fancy that rather than be kept in jail 
you'll make a clean breast of it.” 

“Then they don't know me, that's all,” Barbara inter- 
rupts fiercely, “ and neither do you, if you thought it 
was necessary to ask me to stand firm. If they was to 
chop me limb from limb I wouldn’t tell ’em any thing.” 
21 


314 THE BAR-SINISTER. 

“ Well said ! ” says Mrs. Shaw, enthusiastically. 
“You are of the stuff God’s chosen people are made 
of. The enemies of the Saints can not prevail against 
such a spirit. The saints are praying for you day and 
night.” 

“But I want to know only one thing. John — 
where is he? Has he been heard from?” 

Mrs. Shaw smiled mysteriously: “The children of 
this world think they have all the wisdom. We Saints 
think we have a small share ourselves. Our spies are 
everywhere. Anthony Quinby has done the Church 
he despises one good turn without meaning it. He 
does not know that every telegraph line in Salt Lake 
City is under the control of our Taylor. He tele- 
graphed to Quinby’s heads to keep his brother in New 
York City at all hazards, until they heard from him 
again. He meant only to protect his own name from 
the disgrace of having one who bore it arrested for 
bigamy, but we thank him all the same. If John was 
here he’s just hot-headed enough to stand up and pro- 
claim his rights in you and the boy. Nothing could 
keep him from it. He’s better out of the way. The 
Lord is permitting his Saints to be sorely tried just 
now. But praised be His name, we will come out 
triumphant ! ” 

Barbara clasped her hands fervently together. 

“Thank God!” she said, “for Anthony Quinby’s 
wise act. Now let them do their worst.” She lay 


IN THE TOILS, 


315 

back upon her pillows with a peaceful smile on her 
lips. 

My half hour is up,’' said Mrs. Shaw, placing an 
orange she had just skillfully peeled within Barbara’s 
reach. “ I’m not coming here again until I’m ready to 
take you away.” 

“Take me away! But I don’t want to be taken 
away ! As long as they keep me here where John 
can’t find me, he’s in no danger. Besides, you talk as 
if you could.” 

“ I can ; only if those commissioners give over both- 
ering you they’ll turn you out of their own accord. 
It’s the Grand Jury that’s having you held now. And, 
whatever comes, bear this in mind: I’m working for 
you and the Saints are praying for you. You are the 
greatest woman in Salt Lake City this day.” Mrs. 
Shaw kissed the woman who had had heroism thus 
thrust upon her, and went away after a few more 
impressively delivered injunctions. 

As soon as Barbara was pronounced strong enough 
to leave her room and well, beyond any fear of relapse, 
she was conducted to the Grand Jury room, where she 
was severely and judicially catechised as to her ante- 
cedents, her marriage and the paternity of her child. 

To the string of carefully-worded questions that were 
meant to beguile some damaging admissions from her, 
she returned a defiant stare and mute resistance. 

Do you know that you are rendering yourself 


3i6 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


liable for contempt of court?” asked one of her 
examiners severely, when all hope of opening her lips 
failed. 

“What’s done to people when they show the con- 
tempt they feel? ” she asked with an ugly sneer. 

“They are imprisoned.” 

“ Until when?” 

“Until such time as the offender shall come to his 
or her senses and answer the questions put by the 
Court.” 

“ Then,” said Barbara, with a flashing smile that 
showed all her strong white teeth, “ you may as well 
commit me for life and be done with it. For we’ll all 
die natural deaths right here in this room before I 
answer you a single question.” 

Such displays of defiance were not very impressive, 
taking into consideration the sex of the offender, so it 
was with full expectation of bringing her to speedy 
terms that Barbara was remanded to her cell by the 
United States District Attorney, and an early date fixed 
for her second examination. But when a second and a 
third, a fourth and a fifth time the farce of questioning 
on the one part and defiant dumbness on the other 
left the matter where it had been in the beginning, 
the attorney began to think then that it was more 
than mortal obstinacy against which he was waging 
such futile warfare. The day fixed for Barbara’s sixth 
appearance before the Board of Examiners dawned to 


m TITE TOILS. 


317 


find her once more prostrate with fever. The strain 
on her nerves had been too great. 

With sullen acquiescence in the doctor s commands 
that she must not be disturbed, the men who were 
zealously anxious to bring to justice so prominent an 
offender as John Quinby, turned their attention to 
other parties for the time being, holding the case of 
Barbara Hickman in abeyance. 

It had been through the services of Ferdinand Cos- 
grove that the identity of Barbara Hickman, arrested 
for vagrancy, and the third wife of the rich John 
Quinby, had been established. 

Waking up from a long sleep that partook largely of 
exhaustion, Barbara found Mrs. Shaw sitting quietly by 
her' side with the baby in her lap. Her troubles had 
worn out what little of unselfish mother love had ever 
found lodgment in her undisciplined soul. She looked 
at the child almost savagely. 

“ I could 'a’ done it but for him,” she said. “ I could 
’a’ got away. He broke me down. I slept when I ought 
to have been walking. If I doa t get away they’ll do 
something to John any way, they’re just that bent on 
it.” 

“ Yes,” says Mrs. Shaw musingly, “ that is your 
husband’s only chance. Once you’re out of the city 
they’ve got no case. He’s coming back in two 
days.” 

“ But if I couldn’t do it when I was well and 




THE BAR-SINISTER. 


strong and free, how can I do it now ? Barbara asked, 
wringing her hands in impatient misery. 

“ I am going to accomplish it for you,” says the 
bishop’s wife with that placid air of confidence in her- 
self that always inspired it in others. “ That’s what 
I’m here for to-day. That’s what I’ve staid away on 
purpose for until to day. I didn’t care to seem too 
much interested in you. The rest of them could bring 
you flowers and jellies and pictures. I’ve been saving 
myself to save your husband — yes, and to save the 
Church, too, the loss his conviction would bring on 
it. We need more such : we can not afford to lose 
John Ouinby.” 

Barbara raised the hand that lay in hers to her lips 
and kissed it fervently: “Save him! Save John! I 
don’t care what becomes of me.” 

“ I knew I had a sensible woman to deal with. How 
long do you suppose it will be before you can walk?” 

“How far?” Barbara asked, conscious of total lack 
of strength. 

Mrs. Shaw laughed softly to herself, much as if she 
were enjoying a joke too good to be shared with any 
body. 

“ Oh! not very far. Say from your bed here, to a car- 
riage down about Washington Square.” 

“Soon! Just as soon as you please. If it’s for 
John’s security, I could do it this moment.” 

“Not so fast! Not so fast ! There must be no 


IN THE TOILS. 


319 


failure this time.” Suddenly leaving her chair by the 
bedside, Mrs. Shaw went into the outer corridor, and 
beckoning to her the nurse who took advantage of the 
visitor's presence in the sick room to get a little change 
of scene herself, requested her to summon the jail phy- 
sician. 

When that functionary stood in her presence, Mrs. 
Shaw said, in a gently judicial manner: 

‘‘ Doctor, I suppose the officials have no moral nor 
political ends to achieve by detaining this poor little 
baby within prison boundaries, have they? ” 

“ I answer no questions aimed at the prison officials, 
madam. In my own capacity as physician, I would 
have sent the child away long ago, both for its own 
sake and the mother's, but she has resisted every effort 
to that end fiercely.” 

‘‘Yes,” says Barbara, with blazing eyes, “you 
would have sent it to some institution for pauper 
orphans, I suppose.” 

“Hush! child, hush!” says Mrs. Shaw, soothingly. 
“ Then I shall take the little thing home with me. It is 
pining away in this atmosphere. I only wanted to be 
authorized by you, doctor,” says the bishop’s wife, 
with a fine show of moral obligation to obey the powers 
that be which was calculated to impose on any one. 

The physician bowed stiffly, examined Barbara’s 
tongue and pulse, and went his way. Mrs. Shaw busied 
herself getting the baby ready for removal. 


320 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ I shall be here day after to-morrow,” she said, 
almost whispering the words to Barbara, as she bent 
over her, smoothing the tangled waves of her hair. “ I 
shall come about dark. Bishop Shaw will be with me. 
You must be very strong that night, for John’s sake. 
The baby would spoil all.” 

A look of passionate determination illumined Bar- 
bara’s eyes. And the smile which was her only answer 
spoke volumes. 

Mrs. Shaw carried out her programme to the letter. 
At dusk of the day appointed she and Bishop Shaw 
craved and obtained permission to visit Barbara Hick- 
man in her cell. They staid perhaps an hour, and then 
walked out as they had come in, arm and arm, a quiet, 
slow-walking, elderly couple. The nurse had been dis- 
missed some days before. The inmate of the sick 
ward remained undisturbed until breakfast time the 
next morning. 

When the turnkey reached that room with the pris- 
oner’s morning cup of muddy coffee, Mrs. Shaw’s 
mild blue eyes and fluffy white curls and serene face 
confronted him in place of Barbara Hickman’s more 
youthful beauty and turbulent glances. 

She smiled placidly at his consternation and 
requested him to summon the station officials. When 
they came she said to them with unruffled eyes and 
voice : 

“You have cruelly imprisoned an innocent woman, and 


IN THE TOILS. 


321 


have been holding her to persecute her yet further for no 
other reason than that she advocates and practices 
a religious system that you disapprove of. I have 
assisted her to escape. The Lord never forsakes him 
who puts his trust in Him — as the angel delivered 
Peter from the hands of his persecutors, even as he lay 
fast bound between two armed soldiers, so have I, the 
humble handmaiden of that same all powerful One, 
been chosen to free His chosen servant from your 
hands. You can mete unto me^ whatsoever punish- 
ment you see fit. I rejoice to know that Barbara 
Hickman is beyond the reach of your malice. At 
eleven o’clock last night she left Salt Lake City with 

her child bound for ” With a rippling little laugh 

of the most exasperating merriment, Mrs. Shaw closed 
her incomplete confession. Folding her hands in affec- 
tation of patient submission she regarded the out- 
witted officials with her most benignant smile. 

“Well, gentlemen?” This questioningly, as the men 
stood dumb before her. 

“ I suppose you know your own way home ? ” one of 
them said, with a sense of the ludicrous fast getting 
the better of his wrath. 

“Yes, quite well, thank you.” 

“ And I suppose you know this isn't a case for 
vicarious atonement ? ” 

“Yes, I know that, too.” 

“ Then I guess we may as well sing a doxology. It's 


322 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


plain to be seen whose friend you are ; and that ain’t 
the United States government. You’ve used your gray 
hairs and smooth tongue to help a rogue defeat justice. 
I hope you’ll enjoy your reward among the Saints.” 

Says the bishop’s wife, raising her soft eyes heaven- 
ward : 

“Young men, I look higher for my reward ! ” 


CHAPTER XXVII. 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 

W HEN Bishop Shaw had accompanied Barbara as 
far as Logan, one of the outlying strongholds of 
Mormonism in the Territory of Utah, and had established 
her and her child in comfortable quarters, and supplied 
her with money for her immediate wants, and return- 
ing to Salt Lake City, had himself gone to Mrs. West- 
love and put a note into her hands for instant delivery 
to Mr. Quinby on his return, he considered that he had 
performed his entire duty to his neighbor and to the 
imperiled institution so dear to his own heart, and 
subsided into a species of monogamic domesticity in 
the home of his wife Laetitia, which he found more 
than usually congenial after the exertion and excite- 
ment attendant upon Barbara’s affair, and altogether 
expedient for the time being. 

In consoling classes two, three, four, and five for 
their enforced isolation from his benignant presence 
temporarily, the patriarch said : 

“ This flare-up on the part of the authorities will 
expire soon for want of fuel. Convictions with neither 
proof nor witnesses will be hard to make. Bear in 


324 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


mind that you are being persecuted for your faith’s 
sake. Stand firm as Barbara Hickman stood, pre- 
ferring imprisonment and exile before yielding one jot 
or one tittle, and we will prevail. The constitution 
protects the sacredness of contracts ; plural marriage 
is a contract of the most sacred character, being for 
time and eternity. Fear not what evil men may say 
of you. Abide in the faith and all will yet be well 
with you.” 

And, as terror of the law as expounded to them by 
the priests of the new gospel, was a much more real 
and powerful element in their lives than terror of the 
law as set forth by the malicious intermeddlers who 
had come from the States to persecute the Latter Day 
Saints, Bishop Shaw’s wives held themselves in readi- 
ness to endure buffetings, and scorn, and persecutions ; 
yea, even stripes, if need be, for the glory of the faith 
or curdling fear of the horrors of blood atonement ! 

Mrs. Westlove being one of those complaisant mor- 
tals who never permit principle to militate against 
profit, had cordially consented to charge herself with 
the secret delivery of a letter to Mr. Quinby, the more 
readily when informed that it was to explain his wife’s 
sudden departure. She was thankful enough to be 
absolved from all necessity for making explanations 
that might not explain her own share in Barbara’s 
flight. If things should settle down and leave the 
“ Saints on top,” it would be a pity not to be found on 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 


325 


the good side of such people as the Shaws and the 
Quinbys. 

This is the note that sent John Quinby, all tired and 
travel stained as he was, straight from Mrs. Westlove’s 
to Bishop Shaw’s house immediately on his return to 
the city, before even he had ventured into the frigid 
atmosphere of Anna’s home. The ardent embraces of 
his impassioned Barbara had promised much in the 
way of welcome to a returned traveler, and he had 
made no halt on his arrival. The note was from Bishop 
Shaw’s own august hand : 

“You are to feel no uneasiness at not finding your 
wife where you left her, but are to come to me imme- 
diately on your arrival, no matter what the hour, for a 
full explanation. You will find me at Mrs. Laetitia’s. 
Your true friend and brother in the Church.” 

It was midnight by the time Mrs. Shaw and the 
bishop had put him in possession of all that had hap- 
pened during his absence, and explained to him the 
situation as it then was. Told in Mrs. Shaw’s soft, 
purring fashion, whose desire was to rob it of every 
detail calculated to disgust, he saw in Barbara the sen- 
sation of the hour — the heroine of the day! Had his 
adoption of the new gospel tenets been tinctured with 
more of spirituality and less of sensualism, this glorifi- 
cation of his wife might have added to her value in his 
eyes. As it was, he was conscious of nothing but a 
severe nervous shock that he was in nowise relieved from 


326 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


when Bishop Shaw, taking from his side pocket a letter, 
extended it to him, saying : “ The brave girl said, 

just as I was about telling her good-by, that ‘ she was 
afraid I wouldn’t put it strong enough that she didn’t 
want you to follow her so long as these fellows were 
here,’ so she had written you herself.” 

A flood, of burning mortification swept over John 
Quinby’s clouded face as his eyes rested on the almost 
illegible scrawl in his hand. Barbara had never before 
had occasion to write to him. Her natural quickness, 
which during the silent years of her servitude she had 
expended in intense observation of women whose ad- 
vantages had been greater than her own, had enabled 
her to cover her own educational deficiencies to a great 
extent. Every word in the rude scrawl before him had 
been dictated by the most unselfish devotion for him- 
self, but, stripped of the dazzling blandishments of her 
voluptuous beauty and lavish caresses, the fact of his 
wife’s woeful ignorance struck him with the force of a 
blow. After one hasty perusal of the letter he crushed 
it savagely in his hand with a sense of absolute disgust, 
which obliterated all appreciation of her sublime self- 
sacrifice. And this was the mother of his only son ! 
This the woman who was to rear the future bearer of the 
name of Quinby ! Poor child, she had not ventured 
very far in the thorny, epistolary path. It was a short 
note, but a potential one. It ran : 

‘‘My Preshus Husban. I’m fraid Bisshup Shaw 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 


327 


won't make it deer to you that I'm purfectly happy here 
in Logun with my deer little babie. Dont frett about 
us deer John, until things blow over, and then we will 
be happy together agane. Your loving Barb." 

Why was it that as John Quinby crushed this scrawl 
deep into his pocket, there arose before him Anna’s 
image? Anna, as he had seen her just before he went 
East, and as he would see her again to-morrow ; calm 
in her resignation ; majestic in her self-poised dignity ; 
ministering to the wants of her household with wise 
discretion ; swaying her little daughters to her lightest 
wish by the gentle firmness of her rule ; shedding a 
halo of peaceful happiness about the stricken head of 
Effie’s father! A beautiful embodiment of virtue and 
purity, the hem of whose garment he was not worthy 
to kiss ! Thinking of Anna he felt as one who, prone 
in the bottom of a horrible pit, looks up and sees the 
stars shining above him serene, cold, divine, far, far 
away ! 

He would be under the same roof with her to-mor- 
row, but would any thing ever bring them nearer 
together than the stars to the pit ? The night was one 
of tumultuous unrest for him, the demons of remorse 
and self-reproach and perplexity holding high carnival 
in his breast. 

The next morning found him installed with his 
family. Anthony, careful only to protect the name of 
Quinby from fresh defilement, urged upon him the 


32S 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


necessity of walking circumspectly while he was under 
espionage. And it was not hard to persuade him to 
follow Bishop Shaw’s advice and take no steps to com- 
municate with Barbara at that time. 

Any one chancing to look into the Quinby library 
on anight of the week following Mr. Quinby’s return 
from New York, without knowing any thing of their 
family affairs, would have pronounced it a serenely 
happy family gathering. Mr. Quinby, known to his 
children as the never-failing source of all sorts of 
material blessings, and, in consequence, an object of 
tumultuous affection to them, was sitting under the 
gas-light by the center-table, with the little Comfort 
curled up luxuriously in his arms, joyously amusing 
herself with his watch, now held to her tiny ear, now 
slowly swung backward and forward by its glittering 
chain. Anthony near by, with Mercy between his 
knees, was telling her a wondrous story to which the 
tiny mite was listening with fascinated ears. Dr. 
Ambrose, whose long white hair flowed in waves 
nearly to his shoulders, dozed placidly in the most 
comfortable chair in the room. The old man was 
slowly and restfully sinking into oblivion of every 
thing that pained him. Anna’s sewing lay neglected 
in her lap ; her hands folded about it, her eyes follow- 
ing the motions of Mercy’s restless feet, but her 
thoughts far, far away. 

She was thinking — with the divine pity of one who 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 329 

has passed through the fiery furnace, and come out as 
silver tried and purified by the ordeal — of Barbara, 
ignorant, passionate, misled, suffering! She was think- 
ing of the monstrous- crime of Mormonism, which 
selected for its victims women — always women 1 The 
more helpless, the more credulous, the more ignorant, 
the more degraded — the more acceptable 1 It was 
women who bore the brunt of its curse ! It was 
women who suffered in its success 1 It was women 
who would be crushed when the temple should fall and 
bury them under its ruins ! It was women who must 
cower beneath the obloquy that wrapped it about as 
with a pall ! 

As the clock struck nine, the twins, the one gliding 
from her father’s arms, the other demurely leaving her 
place by Anthony’s knee, approached their mother with 
eager expectancy in their faces. Anna, roused from 
her reverie by the touch of their little hands, said to 
her husband in that coldly even voice she reserved for 
him alone : “ I always sing to the children the last 
thing before putting them to bed. If it will annoy 
you ” 

'‘On the contrary, I have been hungering to hear 
your voice in one of the old tunes. May I select the 
tune to-night, Anna? ” 

He caught her hand as she passed him on her way 
to the piano, and held it while he looked up pleadingly 

into her face. 

22 


330 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


It was a long time since he had pleaded to her for 
any thing. It was a long time since she had allowed 
her eyes to rest on his face in any thing but the most 
cursory glance. As she stood immediately over him 
now, she could see the gray thickly flecking the brown 
hair with which once she had dearly loved to toy! His 
eyes too looked haggard and worn ! Perhaps, after all, 
he was learning that the way of the transgressor is 
indeed hard. 

“You may select the tune,” she said, “but Mercy 
and Comfort must not lose Home, Sweet Home, it is 

their favorite. After that ” she drew her hand 

away and walked toward the piano, Ah, what a 
mockery this very man had made of home, sweet home 
for her. Tears were in her voice as she sang the ten- 
der old melody. 

And outside, her face pressed close to the cold glass 
that divided her as by an impassable gulf from all this 
brightness and refinement and melody, stood Barbara 
Hickman ! 

Poor, storm-tossed Barbara, who could not stay at 
Logan because it was too far away from John ! Indis- 
creet Barbara, who had come back to the city that 
morning, and taking up her quarters in a mean hostelry 
that was full of the noisy, brawling miners who had in- 
undated the place on completion of the Southern Pa- 
cific Railroad, had crept out to her old home eager to 
verify with her own eyes the grief with which she 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 


331 


fancied John overwhelmed, bereft of her society! 
Tortured Barbara, who, taking her stand where she 
had often taken it in the days when she had loved this 
man so passionately, with no dream of ever being 
exalted to the bearing of his name, saw now how easily 
he had found consolation, realized for the first time 
how soon we are forgot. 

She stood motionless for a full hour secure from dis- 
covery. The lights were all in the library, the parlor 
windows were in darkness. When John seized his 
wife’s hand and held it while he looked up so plead- 
ingly into her face, that tortured soul out there in the 
dark night found relief in a stifled moan ! She turned 
and fled back to the tavern where she had left her baby 
in charge of a friendly miner. 

In the quietness of her own room that night she 
calrhed her anguish of jealousy by all the fond argu- 
ments of a woman’s heart when it wishes to shield its 
idol of clay from blame. What did she want ? Hadn’t 
she begged him not to fret, and now was she to make 
herself miserable because he was obeying her? She 
was a most exacting, unreasonable simpleton ! Did 
she want John to run his neck into a noose just to sat- 
isfy her that he loved her? Of course he loved her! 
Had he not said so over and over again ? And* so, 
night after night, tortured, fascinated, driven back to 
her spying in an agony of longing, driven away from it 
in a passion of jealousy, Barbara paced the weary 


332 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


way from the tavern to the Quinby cottage and back 
again, more desolate for every going. 

Returned from one of these harrowing pilgrimages 
one night, the miner who always volunteered to “ watch 
over the kid” for her while she was away looked boldly 
down into her face as she took the child from him, and 
asked : 

“ How much longer is you going to keep up that 
blamed foolishness?” 

Barbara blanched to the lips, and fastened a fright- 
ened gaze on him. 

“ I don’t — I don’t know what you mean,” she stam- 
mered. 

“ Oh, gammon ! yes, you do. If you don’t. I’ll tell 
you. Maybe you think I don’t know you’re Quinby’s 
handsome wife, that old Shaw run out of town. Least- 
ways you’re not his wife, you know : a fellow can’t 
have but one wife.” 

Barbara turned as if to fly out again into the dark 
night. Was there no more rest in this world for her? 
His strong hand was laid on her arm. He drew her 
down on the bench by his side and said, not harshly, 
but in a roughly masterful fashion : 

“ Hold on, now. Don’t go to making matters any 
worse. I’m free to say you’ve struck my fancy. Blast 
John Quinby’s eyes, if it was only him was concerned, 
I’d ’a’ peached on you, long ago. I see what you’re 
wearing your heart out about. I tell you, it’s a relief 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 


353 


to the scoundrel to be shet of you. There's one com- 
fortable and safe road out of this mess for you, and 
only one. You needn’t hope them commissioners is 
going to go back where they come from and let this 
rotten old concern called Mormonism go on crushing 
out women’s lives just for the beastly pleasure of a lot 
of beastly men. I tell you, polygamy’s got to go. I’m 
sorry for you, blest if I ain’t. I’m sorry for every wo- 
man that’s been took in like you' have. I like you, 
you’re as handsome as a picture. You’ve got go in 
you, too. Say the word and we’ll be out of this ac- 
cursed hole in twenty-four hours. I’ll look out for 
you.” 

A tigress about to leap upon her prey could look or 
feel no fiercer than Barbara Hickman as she sat look- 
ing up at the man who made this insulting proposition 
to her. Gleams of light flashed from her eyes, her 
hands writhed in and about each other in a fury of 
restlessness. Her bosom rose and fell tumultuously, 
but no words came to her relief. 

The miner regarded her curiously. She made him 
think of a beautiful panther at bay. Then he said 
coolly : 

“ I see you’re on fire now. But the time will come 
when you’ll think it good luck to be asked in decent 
marriage by a miner. Only this one thing : don’t you 
go to try to get away from here. You can’t succeed. I 
ain’t agoing to lose sight of you, that’s all. You’d best 


334 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


go to bed now. You can’t slip me, you needn’t to 
try.” 

A week had passed since this strange offer had been 
made Barbara. Night after night the miner, hold- 
ing the child of John Quinby as hostage for the 
mother s return, watched Barbara’s departure for the 
house from which she always returned more haggard 
and miserable than when she went. On this night her 
whole appearance was that of one worn to the last 
edge of endurance. 

“ Something more’n common ’s up,” he said, looking 
at her with contemptuous pity, “ and I can tell you 
what it is.” 

^‘You don’t need to tell me,” she said, in a slow, 
stubborn voice. Then without any change of mien, no 
more brightness coming into her tones, she added, 
“ Does your offer hold good ? I’m worn out ! I’m 
worn out body and soul ! He don’t care for me any 
more than he does for the mat he wipes his foot on. 
If polygamy didn’t come from divine command, as 
they made me believe, then my soul’s lost any how, and 
it don’t make much difference what else happens, I 
reckon.” 

“ My offer holds good,” said the miner. “ I’ll make 
you happier than you are now, any ways.” 

It was a strange wooing and a stranger winning. 

A low, bitter laugh escaped Barbara’s lips, then she 
sat quite still for a long time lost in reverie. What 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 335 

was to be the end of it ? For two months now she had 
led the life of a stray dog. If polygamy was to go as 
this man and so many others were insisting, what had 
she left to hope for from John Quinby ? Had she not 
heard him that very night, the window being open, say 
to his brother, that if he could find that poor girl 
Barbara and make matters smooth for her — ” She had 
not wanted to hear more. She was only that “ poor 
girl Barbara,” he did not say , “his wife Barbara.” 
It would be no hard task for any man to make her 
happier than she was now. She was too tired of brain, 
too sick of soul to map out a future for herself. 

“ Will you give me one more night ? ” she asked of 
the miner, getting up to go away from him, with her 
baby in her arms. 

“Yes. But don’t you try my patience to be helping 
that ” 

“ Don’t call him names, please. I don’t never expect 
to see him after to-morrow night. Good-night, 
Williams, and thank you.” 

The next night Barbara did not bring the child to be 
cared for by the miner. He saw her go out of the 
tavern door with it in her arms. He followed. What 
was she up to now? Did she have it in her poor head 
to destroy herself and the kid too? No; she went 
straight up to John Quinby’s door. Stooping, she laid 
her folded shawl on the cold stone threshold, then lay- 
ing her child upon it, she kneeled over him, kissed him 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


33 ^> 

once, twice, three times, then stood up and raising her 
clenched hands high over her head, called down 
heaven’s curse on that house and all its inmates. Giv- 
ing the door bell one fierce ring she turned to fly and 
ran faint and gasping into the miner’s arms. 

‘‘ Don’t be scared, my girl, it’s me, Williams. I fol- 
lowed you to see you done yourself no hurt.” 

“Take me away from here! Quick, quick, quick! 
Any where, any where only so it’s where I’ll never 
hear of him again ! ” 

He took her at her word — took her away from there, 
out of John Quinby’s life, out of the ken of this 
chronicler. Poor Barbara, untutored of mind and heart 
and soul ; more sinned against than sinning. 

Drawn to his front door by the violent ringing of its 
bell, Mr. Quinby almost stumbled over a bundle lying 
there. Stooping to examine it, his hand passed over 
the soft, smooth cheeks of a little child. Hastily gath- 
ering the bundle into his arms he carried it to the hall 
lamp. A thick veil almost concealed the baby face. A 
note was pinned to the shawl. He staggered under 
the weight of the child as he recognized Barbara’s 
handwriting. Laying the waif upon the hall settee, he 
unpinned the note and read it by the light over his 
head. This was all there was in it : 

“You hate me and I’ve gone where you will never 
hear of me again. You’re better able to take care of 
our child than I am. I would get to hating it after 
awhile, for its likeness to you.” 


THE END OF A STRUGGLE. 


337 


That was all. How long he stood there he never 
knew. The child awoke and lifted up its voice. The 
strange sound brought Mrs. Quinby and Anthony out 
into the hall with amazed faces. Mr. Quinby laid 
Barbara’s letter in his wife’s hand. She read it once 
and again, then stood with hands clasped and head 
bowed as if in prayer. Whatever the conflict in that 
pure soul God gave her the victory. Going over to the 
settee she kneeled by the wailing mfant, and gathering 
it in her arms said, in a sweet, solemn voice : 

“ Child of sin and sorrow, I adopt you for my very 
own. God helping me, you shall never know of the 
cloud that has enveloped your infancy.” 

And surely if the recording angel had aught set 
down in his book against Anna Quinby’s name, in that 
moment he must have blotted it out forever. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 


A PARTHIAN DART. 

I T soon got noised abroad that Mr. Quinby’s wife 
Barbara had fled to parts unknown, leaving her 
child at her husband’s door. When Ferdinand Cosgrove 
corroborated this rumor by the direct testimony of 
Anthony Quinby, he relinquished all hope of seeing 
John Quinby brought to justice. ' There was no longer 
any reason why he should linger in a place fraught with 
nothing but painful associations. He began to make 
preparations for his immediate return to Elizabeth, 
where he proposed to settle as a practitioner, taking 
Dr. Ambrose with him, of course. 

In consultation with Anna and Anthony Quinby, 
between whom and himself a warm and abiding friend- 
ship had sprung up, it was decided that Dr. Ambrose’s 
happiness would best be secured by the carrying out of 
Eflie’s wishes that one of Ferdinand’s sisters should 
take her place in the home she had deserted, and fill a 
daughter’s place toward her father. 

In numerous letters home, Ferdinand had made the 
quiet dwellers in that obscure plantation house far away 
in Mississippi familiar with the darkly exciting ex- 


A PARTHIAN DART. 


339 


periences that had come to him since leaving New 
Jersey. Effie's desire had long since been submitted 
to them, and now there was nothing for him to do but 
to write and let them know the date of his proposed 
return to Elizabeth, petitioning that the sister of his 
choice should be there in advance to make the home- 
coming as bright as possible for the desolate old man 
whose own life, until its darkening, had been one long 
ministry to the comfort and happiness of others. 

It was the night before leaving Salt Lake City. The 
doctor was spending his last evening with Anna, his 
packing all over. Ferdinand Cosgrove paced the narrow 
confines of his dismantled hotel room in moody abstrac- 
tion. He was writhing under a sense of defeat ! The 
failure of the case against John Quinby made him feel 
savage. He was also bitterly conscious how much 
more largely revenge entered into his motives than a 
sense of abstract justice. 

“Heavens!” he exclaimed, in loud self-denuncia- 
tion, “am I too becoming dehumanized in this vitiated 
atmosphere? Can any creature breath under the Upas 
tree of Mormonism and not lose all sense of honor, 
virtue, purity and justice? If I could but make the 
world see it as I have seen it, feel it as I have felt it 
in my heart and soul and life, Td speed one Parthian 
dart ! ” 

Suddenly seating himself, he drew writing materials 
close to him and began writing with fierce rapidity. 


340 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


Without pause or hindrance he wrote on and on, and 
in due course of time the closely written pages lay 
piled up before him ready for mailing to the New York 
paper, that accepted his article on Mormonism as they 
would have accepted any item of novelty ^ touching the 
king of the Cannibal Islands or the fabled sea serpent ! 

Few who read his fiery denunciations of the Mor- 
mons in the columns of the daily Argus from time to 
time, ever knew how much of an ardent young soul’s 
bitterest disappointment lent lurid force to those 
denunciations. Few who read his bitter tirades against 
the mockery of justice, as meted out to polygamists, 
knew that it was from the fullness of an embittered 
heart that Ferdinand Cosgrove wrote such lines as 
these: 

‘‘No one who has spent any time in Utah, or whose, 
opinions are based on personal observation, can ever 
hope to see polygamy abolished without bloodshed. 
No amount of legislation, no amount of public pres- 
sure was found sufficient to stamp out slavery until put 
to the arbitrament of arms. The passage of laws 
against this institution must perforce remain only par- 
tially remedial so long as the farce of trial by jury, 
where it is next to impossible to empanel a jury of 
twelve men opposed to it, stands in the way of justice, 
or where, priest-ridden as they are, the Mormons 
openly boast of their contempt for such legal efforts. 
Doubtless if the Endowment House books were as 


A PAR THIA JV DART. 


341 


accessible as the records of our civil courts, convictions 
by the thousand could be made and the Saints would 
crowd the jails. But these destroyers of men’s con- 
sciences and women’s souls keep sleepless vigil over 
their own. I have heard it said that these records are 
surrounded by dynamite, so that in event of danger, 
all written evidence against the Saints can be blown 
out of existence. Without proof what hope of convic- 
tions ! Nowhere is a man called on to criminate him- 
self, and here to lie in defense of one who holds the 
tenets of the New Gospel is esteemed a prime virtue. 
Controlled by a terror of their bishops and elders, which 
far surpasses any a civil magistrate can impose, the 
women are worse than valueless as witnesses. They 
are but so many tools in the hands of the men. 

“ Believing, as the most intelligent Mormons must, 
that it is but a question when the institution so dear 
to their own souls shall become utterly untenable in a 
country to whose religious and civil regulations it is so 
utterly antagonistic, there is an under-current of tre- 
mendous fear pervading all ranks,^ which is produced 
by the attitude of the authorities at Washington. 

“ Taylor denies being a practicing polygamist ; also, 
that he does not inculcate it in the doctrine of his 
church. Taylor has seven wives, and is, it is rumored, 
about to be sealed to an eighth. What credence can 
be given to the statements of a sect which approves of 
lying in defense of its Church ? What hope of a com- 


342 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


munity where priests, the conservators (or should be 
conservators) of public morals compel polygamy ? 
Yes, compel! It is not simply optional. Intimida- 
tions and threats are brought to bear upon the vacil- 
lating or the doubtful. Parental authority is brought 
to bear upon the young and malleable. They are 
early taught to regard this devilish institution as the 
embodiment of wisdom and purity. Women, steeped 
in spiritual ignorance are taught that they can not 
enter the kingdom of heaven unless they are sealed to 
a polygamist. To readers of such statements at a dis- 
tance they seem marvelous, and that intelligent 
beings in the nineteenth century can be brought into 
such mental servitude surpasses the marvelous, but 
the facts are as here stated and are the common prop- 
erty of any intelligent observer of life among the 
Mormons. 

‘‘ And what would you expect from the homes of such 
a people? What could you hope from an institution 
that permits such beastly practices ? What would you 
think of seven families in one room ? What hope for 
children reared in such an atmosphere? Oh, men and 
women of Christian lives and Christian hopes and 
Christian fears, arise in your might and demand that 
this foul blot be wiped from the fair fame of our 
country ! Do not enter your feeble protests, and then 
subside once more with a criminal indifference ! Unite 
in one resistless onslaught. Demand, and refuse to be 


A PARTHIAN DART. 


343 


denied, that the country you live in and love, the land 
your children are to be reared in shall npt be contami- 
nated by the foul infection of Mormonism. Yes, infec- 
tion ! Choose which you will. Either stamp it out or 
submit quietly to its spread ! For the spirit of 
Mormonism is the spirit of unresting conquest. To-day 
your cities swarm with its emissaries. North, South, 
East and West, the serpent brood glides, noiselessly, 
secretively, fatally, poisoning the pure fountain of 
home affection, destroying, everywhere the hallowed 
bonds of domesticity, leaving desolation and ruin 
always in their track. Is the religion that makes the 
daughter desert the father, the mother abandon her 
offspring, the wife turn in abhorrence from the father 
of her children, the brother heap curses upon a brother, 
a religion to be fostered or even endured in the same 
land that knows Jesus of Nazareth, and accepts His 
law of love for its law of life ? Is the word Liberty, 
the watch-word of a nation’s security, to be travestied 
and besmirched into meaning license for a bestial form 
of worship that degrades humanity and insults the 
majesty of Heaven? If ignorance of its blackness lies 
at the root of the nation’s apathy, then let whomsoever 
can, lend his might to rend the veil of mystery from 
this hideous thing called Mormonism. Let no one 
handle it with kid-gloved caution. Let none hope to 
heal the cancerous sore with gefitle emollients. Let 
him who knows it in the depth and breadth and loath- 


344 


THE BAR-SINISTER, 


someness of its reality paint it in the colors of truth, 
though the words flame and scorch wheresoever they 
may fall. Dante’s Inferno is not to be depicted in the 
smooth moving measure of the madrigals, nor does one 
warn his fellow creature from the brink of a precipice 
by crooning a lullaby over him ! ” 

This impassioned plea for the purging of our land 
from the crime of polygamy ofl his mind, Ferdinand 
flung himself on his bed and slept heavily until late in 
the morning of his last day in Utah ! 


CHAPTER XXIX. 


A PARTIAL atonement! 



HE 10.30 P. M. train was the, one Ferdinand had 


X tickets for. A long, idle day stared him in the face, 
when he finally awakened. It was in early June, and 
he thought with satisfaction for the doctor, of how 
pretty the flowers, in the little garden at Elizabeth, 
would be looking on their arrival. The old man was 
filled with the prattling delight of a child at the pros- 
pect of returning to the homelike place ! As for him- 
self, there was nothing specially alluring in any direc- 
tion for him. Conscious of excessive mental and phys- 
ical heaviness on this morning his mind reverted, 
somewhat eagerly, to his chief source of physical en- 
joyment since his enforced residence in Salt Lake 
City. It had consisted in running down, by train, to 
Black Rock, to bathe in the delightfully buoyant 
waters of the great Salt Lake. The day promised to 
be a sultry one. At this season of the year the waters 
were of a delightful temperature. The thought of one 
more plunge off the pier at Black Rock assailed him in 
form of a temptation. It would brace him for the 


346 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


coming ordeal by rail, with its wearisome guardianship 
of his helpless fellow-traveler. He would run down 
and take one more glorious plunge. There was ample 
time. It was only a swift ride of twenty miles by rail. 
He would be back by six at the furthest. 

Arrived at Black Rock, he walked leisurely toward 
the long wooden pier that stretched far out into the 
waters of the lake. He congratulated himself that it 
was both too early in the season and the day for many 
bathers to be on hand. Before reaching the pier he 
became aware of some excitement among the few 
loungers to be found there at all times. There were 
wild gesticulations and excited cries ! Then, rapidly 
advancing toward him, one after another, three men, 
who, from rapid walking, increased their speed by rapid 
running before they got abreast of him. 

“ What is it?” Ferd asked, halting the first runner, 
who stopped only long enough to gasp out, “ Man 
drowning! Hunting boat! Never to be found when 
wanted ! ” 

But a man can’t drown in this water unless it is his 
preference,” says Ferdinand, incredulously, “and what 
are you running this way for? why don’t you swim 
out to him ? ” 

“ Maybe it is his preference,” says the second runner, 
halting to mop his forehead, “ but if it is, he’s about 
gratified! Couldn’t swim in for him. He’s too heavy ! 
He’d a been a dead weight on any man in his fix.” 


A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 


347 


“ If he drowns, you’re all responsible for it,” says 
Cosgrove, speeding forward toward the pier, divest- 
ing himself of his coat and vest as he ran. The 
swimmer might have been seized with cramps, or he 
might have inadvertently inhaled the salt water into 
his mouth and nostrils, and was strangling. That was 
the only element of danger in bathing in this lake. 
Be the trouble what it might, a plunge after him was 
a speedier rescue than a boat. Hatless and coatless 
he reached the end of the pier. Only one man was to 
be seen on it, and he was kneeling motionless, his body 
bent far forward, and his strained eyes fastened in an 
agony of terrible apprehension upon a spot where the 
disturbed waters gurgled and boiled, but no swimmer 
was visible! At the sound of Ferdinand’s rushing 
advance and panting breath, the watcher on the pier 
staggered to his feet, and turned a white face toward 
him! It was Anthony Quinby! Ferdinand spoke 
without taking his eyes from the water. He was 
watching for the bather’s reappearance : 

“ Ah ! Quinby, you here ! They tell me a bather’s 
gone down. How many times has he sunk ? ” 

'‘Once! It’s John! My God, he’s gone ! ” It was a 
brother’s cry of agony. 

“ John Quinby ! ” 

Cosgrove’s eyes left the lake for the first time, as he 
faced toward the helpless cripple whose strained gaze 
had gone back to the water. A dark, ugly gleam came 


348 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


into his black eyes. He folded his arms rigidly, as he 
muttered between clenched teeth: — “John Quinby, 
out there in the bubbling waters! Thief! Murderer! 
Liar! Let him sink! Let him be swept from the 
world he contaminated ! ” 

Anthony seized the locked arms and shook them in 
his torture, as he cried hoarsely, “ Cosgrove, it is a 
demon in you that uttered those words! You would 
not let a dog die so ! If you fail to use your strength 
to save him, loathsome as he is in your eyes, this hour 
will haunt you to the day of your own death ! Help- 
less cumberer of the earth that I am, I could not succor 
him. But for Anna I would be willing to try it ! Save 
him, Cosgrove! Save him, as you would a dog thrown 
helpless on your mercy ! ” 

“You are right ! I have saved a dog’s life before ! ” 

This fierce colloquy had consumed but a moment of 
time. The two men stood side by side on the edge of 
the pier. Ferdinand was stripped for the plunge to 
rescue his enemy from death. In the gleaming sun- 
light a pallid face shone once more on the surface of 
the dancing wavelets. Swinging his agile arms far 
above his bared head, the Mississippian leaped boldly 
into the buoyant waters, then with long, swift strokes 
of arms and legs struck out for the exhausted swimmer. 
He was by his side just as the waters parted to ingulf 
him again! Clutching him firmly by the collar, he 
swam back with his heavy burden to the pier, where 


A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 


349 


crowds were now flocking to see the end of the tragedy. 
Strong hands lifted both men from the water on to the 
planks of the pier. Ferdinand stood for a second, 
looking down upon the limp and motionless body of 
the man he hated no less in death than in life, then 
turned toward where he had thrown his garments. 
There was no sign of life in John Quinby’s body. 
There were plenty of hands ready to engage in the 
task of resuscitation, if resuscitation were possible. 
Anthony kneeled by his brother’s side, forgetful of 
everything but that it was John lying there cold and 
white and still! John! the brother whom he had 
loved with more than a brother’s affection all his life ! 
Erring, gone astray, but John still. Ferdinand drew 
him away from the prostrate form, apart from the 
crowd ! He held out his hand as he said : 

“ I’m going, Quinby, and I want to say good-by. 
Perhaps we may never see each other again. As you 
stay and I go, I’m glad for your sake that I mastered 
the devil in me just now ! ” His glance turned toward 
the form on the pier. “ Perhaps he did it on purpose! 
If he was anything of a swimmer he must have done it 
on purpose. Perhaps, after all, it has been my good 
fortune to thwart John Quinby’s desire? I should 
think life would be fuller of terrors than death to a 
man with his stained conscience ! You said it was a 
demon that held me back from saving him. Perhaps 
it was, but it was a demon of his creation I see 


350 


THE BAR-SINISTER. . 


there, in that wet, limp form only the destroyer of the 
woman I loved, and the wrecker of my own happiness. 
Whether he lives or dies, 1 do not care a toss-up ! 
What I did I think I did for your sake. If he lives, tell 
him I hope it will add one drop of gall to his cup to 
know that he owes his life to a man for whom he has 

blighted life ! If he dies ” 

Anthony’s lips finished the sentence in feverish 
haste : 

May God have mercy on his soul ! Say it, Cos- 
grove ! Say it and it will exorcise the demon of his 
creation. Say it for my sake, Ferd ! ” 

Tony’s sad eyes rested pleadingly on the dark young 
face before him : “After all, my lad, you will come to 
pity him ; I don’t wonder at the hard things that have 
been wrung from you in your pain ; but shall mortal 
man be more just than God ? ” 

Ferdinand’s relenting gaze met that upward, plead- 
ing look. He laid his hand on Tony’s shoulder. “God 
bless you, Tony! You restore a man’s faith in his 
kind. If he dies, may God have mercy on his soul. 
Good-by and God keep you ! ” 

With long, quick strides he walked away from the 
group of men who were laboring with all the devices 
known to them to restore the drowned man to life. A 
few hours later on he had shaken the dust of Salt Lake 
City from his feet forever. 

John Quinby had done it on purpose. In an agony 


A PARTIAL ATONEMENT. 35 1 

of remorse, intensified by the drinking he had done to 
drown reflection, he had taken the rash step which his 
worst enemy rendered futile. Cosgrove had thwarted 
him at last. He did not die. Slowly winning his way 
back to health and strength he had ample leisure for 
reflection on the misery he had instilled into the lives 
of others, on the wreck he had made for those who 
should have been spared every pain at his hands. In 
bitter self-abasement he reproached God for allowing 
him alone to go scathless : he, the only one who should 
have punishment meted him with merciless severity. 

“You should have let me die, Tony,” he said re- 
morsefully. “ It would have seemed like some sort of 
expiation. It is hard to face life again as things are. 
It is hard to endure Anna’s calm scorn. It is hard to 
know that I’ve reached the summit of worldly pros- 
perity only to find that all my hoard can not purchase 
me one little half hour of unalloyed happiness.” 

“ Perhaps, John,” says Anthony, with the persuasive 
gentleness of a woman, “God has some good end of 
His own to subserve in sparing your life. Remember 
that He does not judge as finite man judges. It is in 
your power still to make atonement to the greatest suf- 
ferer of all by your strange apostasy from the faith of 
our mother.” 

“You mean Anna.” 

“ I mean our saintly Anna.” 

“And the atonement?” 


352 


THE BAR-SINISTER. 


“ Is to return to the States with her and your chil- 
dren to live.” 

It is her wish ? ” 

Her most ardent wish.” 

“Will she ask it of me herself? Oh, Tony! if I 
could but once more in life hear her say ‘dear John,’ 
in the coaxing, winning fashion of the early days, how 
gladly my heart would respond to her lightest request,. 
If I could only win the light of other days back to her 
dear eyes ! If I could only bask once more in the 
sweet smiles and tender words she lavished on me 
before I threw them away in my cursed infatuation. 
If I could win Anna back to my heart, Tony; win my 
pure, serene, star-like wife a little closer ! ” 

“That you may never hope for, John. The iron has 
entered her soul too deeply. You brought her here a 
loving, tender, dependent wife. You will take her 
away from here a strong woman, purified as by fire 
from all the petty weaknesses and frivolities that made 
her dependent upon you for her happiness. She will 
never lean upon you again. Her heart, the heart that 
you trampled upon in your insolent surety of posses- 
sion, and laid aside to be used at your own masterful 
convenience, has soared above your reach forever. You 
can never again make it throb with anguish or pulse 
with joy. It has found a surer foundation for its trust 
and love than you could ever afford. And the joys 
that are now hers are such as earth can neither give nor 


A PARTIAL ATONEMENT 


353 


take away. While you have been groveling in the mire 
of sensuality, she has been stepping steadily and surely 
heavenward. Your only hope of happiness lies, not in 
uselessly striving to win her back, but in seeking to 
mount to higher planes of morality yourself. That is 
your only hope of lessening the immeasurable distance 
yourself has placed between your wife and you.” 

It was his own vision of the pit and the star voiced 
by Anthony. 

“ One source of gratitude to God you have that can 
not be over-estimated,” says Anthony, breaking the 
long silence that fell between them. 

“ And that is? ” 

“The inestimable privilege of having your son 
reared by such a woman. All that is true and good 
and noble in manhood your boy will learn at the knees 
of his more than mother. For him, I have heard Anna 
say, she asked God to grant the prayer of Socrates : 
‘ Make me beautiful within.’ ” 

And thus it came about that the Quinbys once more 
became citizens of Elizabeth. People flocked to see 
them on their return and commented freely on them 
behind their backs. All agreed in saying that Mrs. 
Quinby was lovelier than ever, although much graver 
and older, but then, “ the loss of little Abbott and the 
care of three more children would account for that.” 
All agreed that a more considerate or devoted husband 


354 


THE BAR.SINISTER. 


no woman ever possessed than was Mr. Quinby, who 
was quoted as of old as the ensample worthy of all 
emulation, a man who gave freely of his wealth to 
every form of charity. All agreed that it was a species 
of injustice done the community that the vague rumors 
concerning Effie Ambrose’s death on the other side of 
the Rocky Mountains should not be cleared up by the 
Quinbys. But no one ever suspected the tragedy that 
the two households had played out to its bitter end in 
that far away theater. 


The End. 


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54. Mosses from an Old Manse, 

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57. Evangeline, and Poems. Long- 

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62. Paradise Lost. Milton. 

63. Hamlet. Shakespeare. 

64. Julius CsBsar. Shakespeare. 

65. Book of Golden Deeds. Yonge. 

66. Child’s History of England. 

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67. Confessions of an Opium Eater 

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Arthur. 

69. Treasure Island. Stevenson. 

70. Tanglewood Tales. Haw- 

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